Raining, as I write.
Gray-gauze sky loosening
     tearful ticks of time
     that threaten to drown me.

Drops fall…
          away…
               along a well-trod path.

Away,away,
this rainy day.

This rainy day is not like life or as life
     but is life, the thing itself.
The thing that breathes, pumps,
     moves, whirls, waves, eats, sleeps,
     creates, destroys.

Fit for a blanket and a novel.
Fit for a fire and a cat
     purring in your lap.
Fit for staying in bed.

Again the gray-gauze reminder:
     how often life clouds, is cloudy and clouded,
     for those who’ve never walked
     without an umbrella.

A rainy day –
     thinking about drops
          that
               fall and drops
                    to fall and drops
                         already fallen.

The rain persists.

Too quickly we breathe, decided to separate natural
     from not.
Breathe then, slowly now, and listen:
     no thing there is, that is not natural;
     no La-Z-Boy, guided missile, fruit-flavored drink, vehicle exhaust,
     no thing,
     no idea, no direction, no inclination, no lab-born object of eternity,
     no thing soaking up the sun,
     no thing drifting behind closed eyes,
     no thing is, that is not naturally
     expanding effortlessly to express its existence,
     squeezing out the super-, the un- the is-not, the must-not, can-not, shall-not.

There, ghost of a punctured lover!
Nature provided.
Here, fever dream of machine elves!
Nature given.

Nature is.
Breathe deep,          breathe confident.
Slowly in,          slowly out.
We
     are Nature.
They
     are Nature.
All of this
     and God
     are Nature.

So breathe
     slow,          golden,          confidence.

A tree grips tight a hilltop
     patched with browned grass and yellow clover.
Limbs clutch up at palsied angles.
Roots break from a dirty prison
     in small, gnarled humps; serpents moving at a pace
     too slow for most to care about.

O, but for those exponential branches!

One
     leads to three
          leads to twelve
               leads
     to fifty million
          hundred
thousand      and
                    one.

And while the white wind coaxes for weeks on end,
     new branches grow
     from most unexpected places.

No discernible pattern,
save up, out,
          away
                    away.

And if the sun would shine
     from dusk to dawn…
And if the sun would shine
     from dusk to dawn…
We might see:

A nickel-plated beetle,
     exploring an exponential explosion
     on a day when thereon sprouts a new bud.
Left alone, the infant needs to reach upwards
                         and beyond, little beggar,
but the beetle, too, has needs.

One thing
or the other
carries on.

Every branch dependent upon a trunk.

Every beetle dependent upon a branch.

Trees grow.
Beetles grow.
In our bellies, brains, and blood
each of us ferry the dead
     into the unknown –
          such is our infinity.

Meanwhile, this mote continues to be:
          sun, hills, beetles, trees.

Let us start with a mote:

Simple singularity
infinitely dense,
heavy pixel.

A mote we never knew
yet a mote containing all.

Before
this textured paper,
this word sublime –
this muted mote.

Before
this breath
and this breath –
this monist
monastic mote.

Lonely
but what does it crave?
If it is all –
and everything –
and is Is?

You and I
this minute mote.

An instinct to warm,
this mote contemplates
death by volition.

An instinct to move,
this mote mobilizes;
so birth is born.

An instinct to grow,
this mote matures,
nevermore still.

An instinct to act,
this mote memorizes
every line to come.

In the time before time
the mote cries out:

A mirror!

A way to express
all it contains,
all it knows
itself to be.

The mote whimpers,
thinks about
no things,
then shudders.

In a cold, tight, blank room
the mote shudders.

The mote shudders a rippled reclamation of to be.

The mote shudders, frightened by the possibilities of existences.

Possibilities of
community
depravity
connectivity
incompatibility
longevity.

The mote desires wisdom,
a knowledge of what will relate,
viral machinations
and constant iterations.

The mote shudders
with the impossibility
of responsibility
for everything, itself.

The mote shudders!

Everything becomes.

Everything IS
     flame
          and swirl
               and expansion
                    and collision
                         and collusion
                              and coalescing actuality.

Time hiccups to a start,
trips head over heels into an enervated march onward and forever ever onward.

The mote relaxes,
reconsiders,
lets go,
shudders no more.