Canto XVIII

…when he saw a child drinking water from her hands
           he threw his cup away…

…when a mouse ate the crumbs from his poor man’s bread
           he rethought his philosophy…

…lit his lantern in daylight to see if he could see
           anything or anyone truly…

                                   green fruit in noonlight
                                        the olive breeze
                                   bright like fish eyes dart
                                        away
                                   the tree is made of light
                                        the patient wind
                                   decides to stay

…thought in all things moved a soul
           the lodestone draws into a metal rose the iron filings…

                                   roof of mouth is
                                        roof of heavens
                                   the word is the same
                                        starry fog
                                   a thought thought
                                        behind the teeth

…he who discovered what water is discovered the soul is
           eternally self-moving…

                                   a corpse that breathes
                                        buried in thought
                                   counts the olives one
                                        by one the aster is
                                   a purple flower the sun is
                                        a yellow button on
                                   the traffic of the stars

…the threads gave birth to themselves and wove a world
           together, a god is the never-beginning-never-ending one…

…the whole tree is a single leaf he thought the letter g
           unfurled on the stem of the deciduous throat…

…the soul a dry heat he thought the sun would pull
           the moisture from his body leaving him sane and whole…