HYMN TO THE DEEP AND SOLITARY WITNESS

To this universe
world or cosmos
or chaos
which you have spun out of nothing,
from what was smaller
than a mote of dust
or the tip of a hair,
forming a vastness of
dust and wind and fire,
rivers and mountains,
galaxies and stars
To this universe
which never was any this
or that,
or anything real
or definite at all
you have returned
life after life
sometimes proudly,
sometimes abject,
often upset,
suffering,
jealous,
anguished,
murderous,
sometimes in true rapture,
to pursue and crush your enemies,
to clasp those you love,
to look up at the stars,
to glory in sunlight
or laugh in rain,
to kill, to conceive,
to write, to hunt --
yet you have never really been here
for even an instant,
Oh Deep One,
Silent Witness,
Noble Watcher.
Never once in all these lives
have you been proud,
suffering,
abject,
moved,
or rapturous.
You have never felt cold or warm,
never laughed or wept,
gotten born nor died,
loved nor despaired,
yet you watched all this occur,
like a silent watcher in a dream,
clearly knowing life after life,
universe after universe
spun out of nothing,
emerging from a space as small
as a dust mote
or the tip of a hair,
or an electron,
but basically having no size, dimension,
shape, form, idea, sensation,
body, mind, mass, desire, energy --

And even now you go on dreaming
empty dreams that are wonderful.

Written on December 20, 2008, at about 9:20 in the morning, Alta Plaza Park, San Francisco