… to be a conduit of light and nutrients,

a lens through which the world focuses itself

from one perspective,

for one moment,

gracious and receptive,

living not thinking

the wisdom of silence

of soil and rock and trees.

… to be like the black spruce,

that lets the older branches die,

grey, brittle counter-points

to the green apex,

straining out of this thin acid soil

towards the morning sun.

… to be like the white pine,

unafraid of asymmetry,

its lea-side branches

outreaching their windward brothers,

solemnly unbalanced,

but it does not topple,

clinging precarious,

by knuckle-roots

to the rocks

over which my footfalls

beat unrhythmically

to the lay of the land.

I am no-place,

neither a nor -a,

neither imposing nor yielding,

neither analyzing nor criticizing,

neither leading nor following,

neither wanting nor foregoing,

neither taking nor giving,

neither teaching nor learning,

neither reading nor writing.

neither speaking nor listening.

Freedom is no-place,

moving through without taking,

sensing not proving,

laughing

the emptiness of our self-spun webs of no-things:

slogans, platitudes, whinging-whining-special pleading.

The indifference of the material world

says: Nothing is special.

Worth-less

even than these glacial stones

abandoned on forest floor

by ancient receding ice.

Nothing is special

To the magnificent indifference of the material world.

There is no magic,

no gods,

or spirits, or souls, or minds,

or guiding intelligence,

or true self,

or telos.

Entropy+geometry=life:

an exuberance of forms.