“Why do you suffer?”
The pause of feeling undefined,
and then:
“Because I think about my self.”

“Why do you suffer?”
A smaller pause, somehow less burdened, less taken aback.
“Because I do not know yet what I am.
Which is the same as what you said.”

And meanwhile,
the clouds
and the clear drops of river
keep falling.
Moving over the sun,
leaping down mountains like tender wings.

At the waterfall
I watch particles of mist
Drifting in liquid motes
Lit in late afternoon sun
And wonder what you are thinking.

“Actually, I’m trying not to think.”
Good answer, I think.

And meanwhile,
the man down in the valley
cuts hay,
a bird flies in front of a truck, and
a grasshopper springs up, clucking.
It shoots like a cannon out from the grass.

Really, this poem is not about you, or me,
or the things we did, or did not say
to one another.

It’s about the spaces in between.
The silence that leaves room for all, even the fly that flings itself incessantly against the glass
and eventually abandons all hope of survival.

This love of space, this vastness,
so pregnant and so prehensile
must be abandoned.
Yes, even this
must be abandoned
in the ceasing of things.