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richcmather

The Fact of Being Is Always True

By Richard Mather



Said the professor — I am in a vortex,

a maelstrom, below the eye’s surface,

standing on the abyssal plain, the fundament

of all that is. The atmosphere is moving

thickly, dark submarine green, the tempo

of sea-bed’s colour, darkly illumined

and populated by gods, the eternals,

singing songs of Necessity and Fate.

And a word carved deep on the forehead

of the chief eternal stares straight at me

like a cyclopic eye — That word is destiny.


Tonight’s voices from the busy road below;

rain falling on moving cars; the lamp

suffusing this room with light — are, always.

A moment is and is always, since whatever is

cannot come from nothing or cease to be.

Every change in this world is but the start

of an appearing or a disappearing.

When firewood burns and ashes appear,

this does not mean the firewood is destroyed.

It is the disappearing of the firewood’s appearance

and the appearance of the appearance of ashes.

To appear is the appearing of a thing’s

appearing so that what appears is not only

the thing, but also the thing’s appearing.

At birth you appear and your appearing

appears too; and when you are gone, not only

do you no longer appear but your appearing

does not appear either. Death is not

annihilation but merely the way in which

the body and its appearing exits

the horizon of appearances. What is real

is real forever. The fact of being is true,

always. What once occurred occurs even now,

though hidden, and occurs at the last, that is,

on the earth’s last day when all beings

are gathered together, awaiting

their full unveiling. This is destiny.


The professor woke up from his vision,

his strange dream. I have seen, he said,

the Angel of Destiny and it spoke

with two voices. One mouth uttered,

Rejoice! There’s an eternity for everything

on the earth and under the heavens.’

And the other mouth spoke a thin hush —

‘Have you ever heard anything more divine

or does it induce in you a great nausea

making you curse every hurt and error

that was done unto you and committed by you?’



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