Remembering the Verses on Pine Valley Mountain, 27 April 2019

“How the brain supports consciousness may be largely distinct from how it guides decisions, goes to sleep, or gets a seizure. . . .  [H]ow you interact with your friend has little to do with how you perceive the trees or remember the verses. . . .”

Let’s leave wisdom dark.

There’s a lot of lines to sing

Before any big reveal

Finishes this thing.

Let’s remember the verses,

Who have their own needs,

Who are not our friends,

Who are not the trees.

After twenty-thousand days,

We have thought four thousand things,

Thought at least a dozen ways.

The verses dropped everything.

We were what gazed into them,

Names so utterly themselves,

Looking for reflected clouds,

Mountains, heaven—God!—ourselves.

We gave them the moon,

A piece of our mind.

But the moon went through phases 

That left them behind.

They were our mirage of change.

We were the side of the road.

They were what we wanted saved.

We were their familiar ghosts.

Wait. What are we forgetting?

Who were we and what were they

That we became the remains

While they were what stayed to pray?