I don’t associate life
with the butterfly.
It’s pretty
but its time is too short
to have relevance.
Nor does the pine,
despite what the biologist tells me,
seem like anything alive.
As for the mosquito,
I swatted it
as it was about to feed
on my upper arm.
And I don’t get the feeling
that something,
important and irreplaceable,
is now gone from this world.
There’s so much that’s alive
that gives no sense of really living.
Even me.
On a hot summer’s afternoon,
I retreat to my shaded hammock,
curl up, close my eyes, drift off.
I’m no more than
a lump of human clay,
still and silent.
The flies, the house sparrows,
know what I’m talking about.
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