Today I am a cloud
Wispy and floating along
Hoping a wind will come and take me
Shape me, move me
I am everything and nothing at once.
Tomorrow I am she.
Today I am the frog that hops, the bird that sings
Today I am the forest, dark and moody
Full of one, full of all.
I am the meadow, green and full of life not my own
If one is here, all are here, and it is calm.
The pond with the fish swimming, glimmering.
Now a glimmer, now gone.
Tomorrow I am dead.
I am every root digging curled into the damp ground
Dark and confined, not breathing
The wetness seeps through me, eroding me in the silence.
I once was a word.
Then I was every word.
Soon I became every language.
The words flew about, here my arm, there my leg.
I was everywhere and nowhere at once.
The world listened, the audience applauded.
I am the audience, mute, enraptured. The words become notes, the sentences music. I am awed by all the black and white, stunned by the noise and the silence. Bewildered by the softs and louds, the expressiveness mixed with technique. The music enthralls me. I am in a trance.
Then suddenly I am gone.
I am dissolved into the air, being breathed in
by every living thing.
Today I am a child.
I cry for everything because that is all I know how to do.
I eat the world, trying to understand it.
I ask questions.
I love questions because questions help me
understand.
I look up to you, and down on you all the same.
Watching everything you do with a critical eye.
A sponge. Soaking in all the world.
Still able to find the joy of living, needing no purpose.
Today I am a child. Tomorrow I am me.
They are one and the same.
*This was made as a project, an individualistic version of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself"