a friend who knew me as a child
tells me I was  – in spite of a tendency for promiscuity
and contrariness – always a closet mystic

he’s wrong, you know

I’ve never shared the mystic’s striving for union
with the One

I simply wanted to know whether the notion of One
was true, and if so, to prove it to myself
for myself by myself

I walked the neti-neti highway from horizon to horizon
until I fell off the edge of the world
and into the heart of here, where
‘I’ was the only eye and ear and all the senses shouted:
t h u s!

there’s no mystic here striving for union
with the One

this is what’s here, my old friend:
an unknowable, yet inescapable
cosmic narcissist, naked and guileless
playing with itself
– its One and only self –
in every conceivable form and fashion

(did I mention a tendency
towards promiscuity?)

~