In search of nothing, my one true love, body
Loaded up the car and headed east into Zion
On a grey first winter morning. How to get nowhere
From now here? No one in the tunnel though the heart
Of the park. Few tourists and then fewer on the east side,
Up high, where thin flags of old snow lay surrendered.
No mule deer, no bighorn sheep, a raven, no condors.
Parked the car in junipers. Studied the grey skies.
Ate a packaged snack. Waiting to die, waiting
To run out of borrowed supplies, that's no way to die.
Consider the options. There's nothing and there's
Nothing much. Nothing is accessible only by metaphors,
Numbers, ideas, lies, and death--the same. Most people
Don't want to go there, drag their feet, finally get dragged
Over the cliff in a hospital bed, maybe a gun at their heads.
Most people, body as self included, get by on nothing much.
Nothing much is pretty much mostly everything that happens,
With small pockets of startling exceptions. Nothing much
Going on in the cedars in the high country, for instance,
Most of yesterday, last autumn afternoon, direct sun
Sinking as it warmed west Zion, not even tourists, squirrels,
Or flies to disturb it, no singing birds. Once in a while,
The long, withdrawing roar of a jet at high altitude. Once,
A great commotion of wild turkeys roused to ruckus,
Out of view, making a noise suspiciously like rambunctious
Joy in the unseeable distance. Then, nothing much, mostly, again.
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