The Sum and the Lack

The Sum and the Lack

What you know, what you can do, who you are

—all of this you bring to each moment

that will be born, with you and without you.

And what you don’t know, can’t do, are not

and never have been—this, too,

a far larger plenty, is what you bring.

And both—the sum and the lack—

are necessary, both are absolutely vital.

The attention that focuses what exists,

the opening that enlarges what exists

by receiving news outside itself—

One carves a door, the best door

that can be shaped to present circumstances,

the other makes a space in which

the door can swing, inward and outward.

In this way the event may arrive.