Remains and Passes

The blue light of which we are all composed resolves itself in form and then goes on. Understanding is simply the illusion that calms the surface beyond which we perceive the absence of depth, any depth at all. Ask what passes, learn what does not. At 3 a.m. beneath pine trees a few flakes of snow are visible in moonlight. Near the shoulder of what I am for now (or seem to be) a chickadee murmurs. The suggestion is that herons are enough, or that one can take a black bear for a teacher, or sit a long time learning how the sea invents the horizon and how the horizon is just longing seen another way. Let go, let go. The Hardy Boys taught me that investigation matters. Dungeons and Dragons taught me the importance of remembering that mirrors need a source of light to work and are not themselves the source of light. The dog goes out into the field and comes back. Clouds cover the moon and pass and the moon remains and passes. Remains and passes does not change. Between this and that, word by word, all that ever was I am.

we cannot abandon
what we do not know -
yesterday's poem about chickadees
is lost
in today's falling snow