what ghastly filters we carry
behind our eyes
and under our skin
how powerful the voices in our heads
to assign order and category

our world is spectacular
the spectacle of nature
tireless, overwhelming
glorious
and then I arrived
so important
as to shut out the glory

I works not
to see things as they are
I wants to analyze
to convince, dissuade
and deconstruct
I is busy
after all
there is so much happening now
not pertaining to I
needing to be filtered out
I needs room
to ruminate

I would surely be unemployed
unneeded, forgotten
if we get distracted
powerless stow-aways of life’s theater
and it must be
the old man inside my head
is afraid of the dark