They are here
They are always here
I walk among them
So often unaware

Arising full of pain and stiffness
Is it cancer?
Struggling into my clothes with grunts and groans
Making coffee, spilling grounds everywhere
Grabbing my old stick
I stumble through the woods
Looking, listening.

We all affect each other
In intended and unintended ways.
My old hiking stick
Destroys the wondrous web
She spent all night making.

What power I have over her.
What power some have over me.
Even the smallest ones
In my gut or veins
Deciding only
If I live or die.

I am the destroyer.
I am the destroyed.
Flood and fire
Tooth and claw and fang

What does it mean?
What does it all mean?
Anything? Nothing? Everything?
Together we all rush along
A herd of cows on stampede
Pushing, pulling one another
No one knowing where or why

But the whole has its own direction.