At a certain moment
it had been decided in him
that the world was real
in just the way he was,
if he was, aware and feeling
and thinking about everything
and wanting and not wanting
and forever being there.
He wanted to be there forever
so took lessons from the stone,
not just vast arching synclines
or mountains on the horizon
but from pebbles on the path,
did research among the trees,
grasslands of the 40th parallel,
Buzzards Bay and Bosporus but
most of all the sea he could see
from the cloud he also visited,
sleep or waking, one mind for all.

4 October 2022