Through the Trees pt. 2

Misunderstood and disillusioned

I go on describing this place and the way it feels to live and die

The “natural world” and whatever else it’s called

I drive in and out of town, seeing no edge, breathing sky

And it’s hard to describe without seeming absurd

I know there’s no other world

Mountains and websites

Dark smoke fills the air

Some from the fire in my house, some from me driving around

I could see the lights of town through the trees on the ridge

On my way home in the dark

I meant all my songs not as a picture of the woods

But just to remind myself that I briefly live

The gleaming stone, the moon in the sky at noon

There is no other world and there has never been

I still walk; living, sleeping

Life in the real world of clouds, clawing for meaning

Still when I see branches in the wind

The tumultuous place where I live calls out, revealing

“Can you see the river in the branches

And know that it means you will die

And that pieces are churning?”

“Can you find a wildness in your body

And walk through the store after work, holding it high?”

I’ve held aloft some delusions

From now on, I will be perfectly clear

There’s no part of the world more meaningful

And raw impermanence echoes in the sky

There is either no end or constant simultaneous end and beginning

A pile of trash, the fog on the hill

Standing in the parking lot, squinting