What is the measure of a person’s life?
What metric is there
that says “this is who you are”
and “this is what you’re worth?”
I think—or rather—intuit
that the silent fisherman,
alone knee deep in the river,
has the significance
of the river itself.
That he,
like the autumnal leaves
spinning bluely in dew,
with the easing hand of gravity,
is vein and artery.
I see him there,
tall as mountain,
and with equal
lonely divinity.
He inspires me
simply by his being.
I don’t know him, his thoughts, nor ambitions;
I don’t know if he’s truly fishing, but
I never ask these things of the fire-red salmons,
or the brown maze bundles of branches
that make up the wonder of bush and tree
and vascular network of forests.
All of these things, like the fisherman,
exist in the hum
the bioelectrical
psychophenomenal
edge
of hearing…
And if wind can chime and ring
with a melody that sings
a rich and soothing balm for the heart,
then the same must be true about everything
and everyone.