ultimate response mode

I can’t give a response I don’t have.
I am not moved to respond. There 
it is. 
I’m perfectly
comfortable with that!

I feel a little sheepish about
the innocent glee of just being there
and finding out - I have no response!
What a magic trick. It’s like when
the magician shows you what’s up
his hat and it’s empty! You know

the things that hat can disgorge
in cascade, in deluge. Sometimes

empty is the most elegant trick.

I peer with sincere curiosity
around the moment, watching
others with interest - perhaps
this moment will draw
something out in them?

I’d be cool with that. I’m not trying to
instigate a “BOYCOTT THE MOMENT! NO
RESPONSE!” movement. I’m just alert

in peace, aware

with calm.

I let it unfold, like
napkins dropped
from a height into
a big cardboard box,
their fancy-folded patterns
come loose in some, staying
snug-tight in others. So too

with moments like these, albeit,

not in a way you could describe. 

Because I am unmoved. Because
no response rises in me. Because
nothing is called for. I feel no call.
Did you feel a call? Fine, respond
then. You are called. It is called-for
in some sense. Words

for me don’t spring, take shape
and form in ordered ranks to sally
forth in marching marshalled array 
to wreak whatever the hell I mean 
upon the other unless called. 

“Because I can’t think of anything
to say,” would be one way to describe it,
a false, weak way. The emphasis is
all misplaced, as if it’s the mind’s job
to create the moment’s truth from

nothing!

If I felt anything at all, if I meant
a thing at all - I could easily say.
Easy with force of clarity, even
- sometimes, if called-for -
panache! It is not
strength or virtue
to be easily, powerfully moved
by nothing in any given moment,
is it? Nah. Come on.

Grow up. 

I mean if I had a thing in me to say
I’d knock the moment sideways with it. 
I wouldn't even bat an eye. Would you? 
Would you eye a bat? I eyed a bat 
one time. It was dusk. I laughed! 

"That's a bat!" I looked around 
to see who else was eyeing. Nobody. 
I laughed again. "That's just a cool 
dude truckin' up there. Bats aren't 
spooky!" 

It was in me to say that. It was 
my place to say. In that moment 
I had say. 

Other moments? I await. 

There’s a limit to how long you can
remain in a moment awaiting. Unmoved
by whatever the hell’s going on and on,
and on, and on, and just remain there.
At some point, you come to yourself
and realize “Hey, what the heck? Clearly
it’s not going to happen buddy. What
are you waiting for?”

I kind of love those cases,
where no response rises
in me. I’ll just be there
“on the spot” as it were,
half-expecting my response,
half-wondering what my response
will be (it’s pretty delicious anticipation
sometimes, even in split-second increments),
and suddenly it starts dawning and dawning
on me:

…Hey.

…I’m not going to have a response, am I?

I don’t know, it’s just so refreshing! I always forget
it could happen. When it does,
it’s like somebody
handing you a completely
unasked-for shaved ice, lemon
-lime flavor. Somebody you trust
it’s not poisoned, I mean. The moment

is like that, except not in a way 
you could describe. 

How do you not break out in smiles for miles?
It’s a total reprieve of sorts.

What can they do? Anybody who tries to make
out like you have to give some response, you’re like
“Buddy, you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

They don’t! You don't even have to say that. You're just 
like that. 
If they want
to claim there’s something
you have to say, buddy they better
be able to specify. Hard claim
to sustain on a nothing demand.