Through The Trees Pt. 2

Misunderstood
and disillusioned,
I go on describing this place
and the way it feels to live and die.

The "natural world"
and whatever else it's called
I drive in and out of town
seeing no edge, breathing sky

and it's hard to describe
without seeming absurd.
I know there's no other world:
Mountains and websites

Dark smoke fills the air
some from the fire in my house
some from me driving around

I could see the lights of town
through the trees on the ridge
on my way home in the dark.

I meant all my songs
not as a picture of the woods
but just to remind myself
that I briefly live.

The gleaming stone
the moon in the sky at noon
there is no other world
and there has never been.

I still walk living sleeping
life in the real world of clouds
clawing for meaning.

Still when I see branches in the wind
the tumultuous place where I live
calls out revealing.

"Can you see the river in the branches
and know that it means you will die
and that pieces are churning?"

"Can you find a wildness in your body
and walk through the store after work
holding it high?"

I've held aloft some delusions.
From now on I will be perfectly clear:
There's no part of the world more meaningful
and raw impermanence echoes in the sky.

There is either no end
or constant simultaneous end and beginning.

A pile of trash
the fog on the hill
standing in the parking lot squinting.