It's a strange thought to think that I am not just singular and free,
But a collection of the world, and all the world's just a part of me.
My thoughts, they come out, the world too,
It comes in, fused together, shapes make do
When every chair is just some wood, a function, and a given name,
Without the floor, the room, the maker, it could never be the same.
You see an object standing there, a thing to hold, a thing to see,
Believe it has a life on its own, but it's defined by you and me.
The body without us is no living, yet feels lived
The moment a joy appeared, was it earlier grieved?
A single deed has no true substance, a silent thought has no reply,
What is a doer without the doing, beneath an empty, watching sky?
A promise of a solid being, why does it feel like shifting sand?
This whole existence feels so borrowed, held in everybody else's hand?
Seated at my place, I have encountered too much already
I have lived a lot of lives, yet I don't see me steady.

Unlatch the shutters of thought,
let the quiet pour in;
Let the world’s noise drift like a tide beyond reach.
If questions rise,
keep them folded in silence
let patience teach.

The day will come when the heart speaks without sound,
when the smallest truth stands clear as a flame.
So open the mind and hold back the tongue,
yet feel all the same.

Unless you are lost,
Nothing can happen.

Unless you vanish,
Nothing can exist.

weeds heed no measure of time
save perhaps the ticking of rain

or the slow circle of seasons
in their own meter

they climb their way
through the creases and the concrete

splaying themselves before the sun
the dragonfly red bodied and resting

so patient upon the warmth of the garden stone
it has no word for pastpresentfuture

there is only now
and now

is always enough
be wary of power

of those who        collect and wield it
of those who        conscript and twist it

be wary of all that prattle and blather
it has absolutely nothing to do with power

or weeds
or dragonflies

a whisper of a prayer.
the crescent moon.
the flickering candlelight in her eyes.
the needle and a spoon.

down the hall
a radio plays softly.

her silhouette dances
on the plaster wall
like the waning crescent moon

and the moon holds no light of its own.
it resides in darkness.

(carved into the wall)

epigraph:

the needle in my arm
and the world
can do me no harm.

the needle and the spoon
and the waning crescent moon---benediction,
the night remembers no one.

there was no fanfare,
no procession, no proclamation,
as i hit the button, no exclaimation
as i changed my life. as if no one
noticed, and if i am right, they
probably didn’t.

didn’t see as i drove the valley,
didn’t protest, or speak in tongues,
did not see the little things.

we bought winter food.