Calm without Significance, Peace That Isn't a Sign

 

I sit my insignificant body,

Of no interest to anyone but me

And the keepers of data these days,

On a grey boulder that used to be black

And a blob of molten lava before that,

Looking out over a panorama

Of mountains, mesas, canyons, and desert,

Which reveal no roads or houses from here.

They’re down there. One housed me. One led me here.

I imagine myself an ornament,

Scenographical, a wayside hermit

Perched on a rock at the edge of a cliff,

Gazing, wisely and foolishly, at what?

A bit of landscape. A wedge of the world.

Should I raise a cairn? Scratch lines on the stones?

Allude to sutras or a sage or two?

Hold this pose until someone notices?

Better, let’s litter. Let’s leave this I here.