For a long time, I enclosed myself, focused on how I was distinct, unique,
How ‘I’ was ‘I.’
I often wondered:
What is there outside and within myself that links me to this realm?
I felt connected only when I observed others connecting;
In some way, their connection included me.

Beyond that,
I could not ignore that I had something in me,
Something I wanted and needed to express.

All I knew was that I didn’t want to be made into someone I wasn’t.
Better to stay with who I was,
Though who exactly that ‘I’ was I couldn’t say.

Who was that ‘I’?

Maybe that ‘I’ was a wanderer, a vagabond,
In the world but feeling apart from it,
Somehow outside it,
Somewhere amidst the gathering dusk on the road heading out of town.
To others looking like the embodiment of freedom;
In reality, free
Only in aching dreams.

Maybe that ‘I’ was a poet, a wordsmith,
Using the pen like a mystic hammer,
Nailing words deep into unseen foundations,
Undertaking the groundwork of the soul.

Maybe that ‘I’ was a hermit, a Desert Solitaire,
Going out into the wilderness alone to listen to the silent intimations
Of an ancient and sacred world,
Searching in the aloneness for a Fountainhead of companionship,
Seeking in the splendid isolation a connection that could not be lost.

Maybe that ‘I’ was a poor tramp, a prodigal son,
Crying out to the empty night like a prophet of despair,
In sacred confusion, in divine discontent,
Searching for dissolution begot by dissipation,
Craving a fleeting solution to an insoluble situation.
And the thirst: forever intensifying;
The thirst: impossible to quench.

Maybe that ‘I’,
Who had no idea
Who it was,
Was not a single ‘I’ at all.
Maybe it was a multitude of I’s,
Each one striving to be the Number One ‘I,’
The original ‘I’, 
The distinct ‘I’,
The ‘I’ independent of all other I’s,
The one and only ‘I.’

Aye Yai Yai!

Do you understand where I’m coming from?
Do I even understand where ‘I’ am coming from,
And who the ‘I’ is that is coming?
Is the ‘I’ coming? Is it becoming? Is it going?
Going where? Coming from where?

Or has the true ‘I’ been here all along,
Neither coming nor going,
Masked by all these ‘I’s wanting to be it?
These ‘I’s defined by what they seek to be.

What do these ‘I’s seek to be?
What do your ‘I’s seek to be?
What do your eyes see when they really look?
What do your ears hear when they really listen?

Really, listen:
Do you hear Life
Sing itself
To wakefulness?

Really, look:
Do you see the immaterial city
Renew itself
Without ceasing,
Arise
Without sleeping?

Watch it
Begin
Each moment anew.

Do you see?
It does not seek to be.
It is.

It is,
As are you.

It is as you are:
Do you
See?

You are as I am:
Can we
Be?

We are as It is:
Let us
Begin.