Strange anything at all exists.

 

What is, is!

 

Profound tautology,

but I can’t find a curtain to pull

to let me see behind “is”

 

Wittgenstein snorts like an impatient horse,

 

“Haven’t you ever heard of getting snared in a language game?”

 

This is the form fashionable in the West

of what in Indo-Persian lore once was called a “tilism” *

a magical landscape that can pass for real and hold you

for a very long time, even your whole life.

 

A substantial part of the beam of my attention,

is always held in wonder that a pen can be, that I am,

that a green shirt can be, that light and robins can be…

 

I’m dazed by what other people take for granted.

 

I’m a child or a fool or both mixed up together.

 

The wonder of water and palm trees and the blue of sky

 

And dark and stars and the ever unrolling scroll of dreams.

 

I admit it: I’ve been lost all my life and this

is where I’ve lived and this is who I’ve been

 

An undeclared mystic

 

 

 

*See the “Adventures of Amir Hamza”

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