Who to find myself being

I am not the I, that has survived itself

all these years

I am summation

of love and gifts

of others.

I am hummus and curiosity and questing for wisdom.

I am accomplishment and mastery,

hemlock and ground squirrel,

reflexes and intelligence of hunting ancestors.

My clothes were made by others, so too house, car,

computer, artwork. The garden I plant with seeds

from anonymous producers bears vegetables

and fruit in soil that little worms fabricate.

I am the dreams of Holocaust perishers,

I am the clothes of ex-lovers, handkerchiefs and socks of my dad,

gold paint and bed and down comforters from plants and hands

I’ve never touched.

I am the inspiration of dead Chinese poets, who drank

their landscape as if gargling poison.

My flute music issues from Pacific winds,

flute fashioned of Mexican silver by thick Hoosier hands in

Elkhardt, Indiana.

I am the wonder of Neolithic peoples handed down over thousands

of generations. I am dandelions and poppies and grass persisting

around my home.

I am driven by the oil of dinosaurs, warmed by the enclosures of Douglas fur

and drywall and glass that waited in the ground for eons.

I am wood and rubber and plastics and furniture.

I am junk mail, email, voice messages and thin spinning thoughts of friends

that love me into existence every day.

I am Christmas lights and windshield fluid, photo albums and tennis balls.

I am carpets and cleaning products, slick shower curtains and brass doorknobs.

I am the wishes of Bodhisattvas and Buddhas, compassion and lovingkindness

and growing awareness of a star that won’t keep its eyes closed.

I am meditation with waves and clouds and sky and night.

I am the realization of ten million imaginations,

spinning a civilization out of everything

loitering.

I am laughter and tears as swift as rivers.

I am windows and power lines and garbage containers that go out every

Tuesday morning.

I am an unwashed car, NPR, a hand-me-down cat, tufts of laundry lint piled in

a Tupperware container.

I am a pair of supple hands and lithe feet.

I am the blood of raisins.

I am the recycled dust of Mt. St. Helens and the meltings of

Cascade glaciers.

I am the pungency of chantrelles, the wanderlust of Spirea Douglasonia,

the striptease of madronna.

I am kayak glide, burnable fog, lingering moon above a

burnished skyline.

I am chorus of I-5 commute, unique angles of bones strutting around

Green Lake, a foreign man waiting for bass to strike his dangling lines.

I am Blue Heron camouflaged by Thornton Creek,

I am legions of crows, coots, geese and starlings

cleaning up scraps.

I’m a madman for love in a waterlogged Norwegian shantytown.

I’m blackberry bushes and cherry blossoms and rhododendrons and azaleas

beyond anyone’s wildest visions.

I am prayers and politics, encouragement and goosing, play and hard work.

I am the runway of the hermit crab, mussel shells, empty and fat,

a fetid, salty smell that will follow you for miles.

I am lasting patience, brooding mountains, weathered beach logs.

I am worn and mossy fences emanating happiness.

I am cormorants’ wingflap, tides changing,

fish leaping.

I am magical renewal despite depletion, mouth that eats

everything offered.

Pure acceptance of terrible legacy of impermanence.

Biding at the center of the Breitenbush bridge

A necessary, forced humility.