Lost Dialog
Perhaps it is the thing,
(my
brother is lucid when he is sober
and
fakes it when he is not)
or the mind's rendition of the thing,
(my
drunken brother dropped his plate
on
his way to take a pee in the bushes)
or the grid in space trisecting with precision
the geometric locus where the thing resides,
(there
are flies on the thing and a chipmunk nibbling
at
it and a rat snake slithering through the grass)
or is it the atoms and the space
between the atoms of the thing,
(this
thing is a mere peanut shell,
barely
a thing at all, lying among the beer cans,
the
corn cobs, and the chicken bones
of
the Labor Day pig roast)
or the bend in time and space
induced by tiny flecks of thing,
(there
is a barn owl waiting for the exact instance
between
dusk and dark when the rat snake is more blind than she)
or an unknown fifth dimension where the thing's
god stands to cast thunderbolts at the thing
and the thing's goddess squats to fertilize the thing.
(the
thing could use a god or goddess
before
it disappears into a chipmunk belly
and
then into a rat snake belly
and
then into a barn owl belly)
the thing could use a god or goddess,
I fear for its soul, soon to be transmigrated
into a chipmunk soul and then into a rat snake soul
and then into a barn owl soul,
(mind
the lesson of my drunken brother,
lest
a god or goddess cast you to sleep in the bushes
among
beer cans, corn cobs, and chicken bones,
among
tiny flecks of peanut, chipmunk, rat snake, and barn owl,
after
a night of intoxication at the Labor Day pig roast)
or perhaps my brother has a point, it is just a thing,
(perhaps
my brother's question deserves an answer:
are
the atoms and the space between the atoms
of
the soul preserved from thing to thing?)
HOLD EVERYTHING, I'VE GOT IT,
Protagoras: man is the measure of all things,
Pythagoras: A² + B² = C²,
(and
perhaps not)
© George Miller 2005