Non Sibi

Each kingdom is food for the next.
I was mineral water, liquid lunch 
for rhododendrons.
I was a succulent leaf of skunk cabbage
for the hippopotamus.
I was a goat for the hunter.
Now my mind is the food of angels.
But perhaps creation explodes
out of nothing not for me.
For whom then?
A songbird at dawn?
Did the phylogenetic storm of eons
whirl from the black hole of eternity,
the cosmos erupting in a breakdance 
of hydrocarbon bling, 
a dream in the chloroplast,
a sundance of green munched up by
gorillas in mammalian concupiscence,
just for this man-brain to secrete
neuropeptide satori-nectar?
Maybe, after all, not for me
but for the epiphany
of a white-throated sparrow,
tiny bones and feathers the stuff
of chthonic stone,
breakfast of berries and worms,
twigs for a nest, provided 
by the old-growth cedar forest,
her wide un-trembling eye
more capable than mine
of wonder, of emptiness, 
of seeing
into the silence beyond thought,
and singing about it.


Photo by Jeffrey Luth

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