Wakefulness Inside a Sleep

I wasn’t born yet, the wanderer dreams,
Nor am I now. Now, I’m back in storage,

In my guise as hermit by the roadside,
My role whenever wanderers become

Vulnerable or unfashionable.
A special kind of tourist is in vogue,

The traveler of authenticity.
From the perspective of geography,

Anthropology, ideology,
Native or nativist identity,

The wanderer, by redefinition,
Lacks authenticity. Come sit with me.

We can pretend to be irrelevant
In an age when pretense is genuine.

Sometimes I think Siddhartha didn’t want
Disciples or an end to suffering

And didn’t give up life as a hermit
Hoping the world would come to him, dreaming

Under his tree. He was only dreaming.
He didn’t expect such a commotion.

He was resting, trying not to attract
Attention—he wasn’t mumbling sermons.

He was a person, a human beset
By thoughts words’ infections wormed into him.

But as he dreamed his solitary dream
By the way that had been indifferent

To him up to then, he talked in his sleep
Until someone shrewd, someone authentic,

Overheard him. Before his eyes opened
A genuine temple rose around him,

And there would be no more wandering then
For him, the life of the poem lost to him.

But this is not Siddhartha’s dream. The trees
Are still crystal, the patch is still yellow

On the side of the house in the distance
Where all the rest lies, waiting, not waking.