Hexagram 63: Water Over Fire

*As heard at the WCC Ottawa Spoken Word Cafe, September 21, 2021.

I’ve been playing with the Yi Ching as a tool for writing inspiration. I threw hexagram 63, Water Over Fire, and this poem came forth:

Water Over Fire

I am water over fire
cool drops falling onto
smoldering plains.

You are fire under mist
rising heat turning cool
damp indifference to thunder.

In this pause…

do you refine
what you’ve accomplished
or burn it to ash?

do I embellish
misty blue discoveries
or evaporate?

The hexagram intones
restful peace, but
our music roils—

water over fire,
pendulum swinging
from want to need.

Where do we arrive—
still point between breaths,
fine-tuning, or the end?