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