Thoughts all swim in schools.

There are shoals moving out beyond the stars.

Peering through a shimmering wall of fish, the infant looks out at the world with incredibly detached eyes, sucking it’s Mother’s breast.

Now I've sunk to the bottom of the aquarium.
Sitting in the middle of the “O” of the word opening,
my eyes are closed. Now space is wearing my glasses
nodding yes, yes.

Exquisite words keep pouring out of the oceanic darkness, words so beautiful they make the silence more powerful,
like the space between stars which deepens the luminosity.
Is this clear?

“I certainly hope so!,” said the infant, who at this point was wearing my glasses, staring intently into the deep space of its Mother’s eyes ~

and those eyes are like a door
that keeps opening and opening without end,
swinging softly on the wind of the words

“I love you”

and

“I am you”

and

“I love you.”

Far above, on the top floor of the stratosphere

two clouds lie next to each other on a vast bed of clouds,
quietly observing each other:

"The eyes through which I see God
are the same eyes through which
God sees me," says one cloud.

The other cloud is slowly nodding its approval.

Both of them are drifting, lazily
blowing apart on a slow wind

becoming vast and barely visible.

Now there is only a thin veil between "each" and "other."
Now the words of the clouds are almost inaudible, no
shapes left, only a haze that lingers in the mind alone:

"No eyes, no God, no me," the cloud whispers.

That distant dog has something on his mind ~

something simple I bet, maybe something
about why it's so much fun, or so exciting,
or so dreadful to keep barking.

And so it is said, "The ego is like a dog
barking up a tree that doesn't exist."

I know exactly how that dog feels.

A ghost is struggling with some other ghosts
in the middle of a dream.

Objects appear and disappear at random.
The ghost is struggling with itself, or it's selves,
the collection of other ghosts it is.

One speaks. One listens. One judges. One judges the judging.
And another and another, ripples meeting ripples making more
ripples, strange patterns on the water,

ghosts meeting ghosts that moan in the bare branches,
whisper down the hallway, argue with themselves
in the shower, and stalk themselves endlessly in offices.

The tea is filling the air slowly as it evaporates,
its steam only a memory now, a flicker.
Now we come to the real subject of our story
which is only the play of words, in the mind
alone, the joy of their presence and their absence:

dried orchids lie on a wooden table
that stands on an old rug
that holds down the floor so that I
may sit still, with no purpose

and dissolve in the dark space behind me,
darker than any of the minds' shadows.

This is where we were never born.

The cup is stained, half empty now,
but slowly filling with rain.

So here is our assignment:

Without moving even slightly

right now, between
the out-breath and the in-breath

do the only thing you
will ever need to do

to be happy for the rest of your life.