…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…