The Show

Slow Tuesday morning

Scattered with cottonwood seeds and sunshine

A shirtless bask on a quiet bench

Soaking in the world

Marveling at the strange loopy-ness of our minds

Seen from a particular perspective

We are (only) all we see, feel, hear, think, and taste

Which is to say, we are our minds

Which, it seems to me, are made of the intricate dance

Between our brains and the world

We sense a dichotomy — an inside and an outside

And while those arbitrary distinctions are a true descriptors

They don’t describe our minds — which are both. Always both

The world is in our brain. Our brain, in the world.

A fleshy grey organ hidden in pitch darkness

Surrounded by fluid and thick bone

Receiving only electricity and chemicals

Not light, Not sound, not temperature, nor ideas

And yet, somewhere, a fantastic show emerges

A rip-roaring spectacle — dazzling, vivid, captivating

A riveting perfomance

We think The Show flashes on the screen in our skulls

Somehow dancing on the walls in the dark

But we know there is no light there

Only sloshing fluids and tiny sparks -

Silent, insulated, invisible

The Show features a main character — a hero

He, or she, seems the center of the show

And of a different sort than the cottonwood seeds

Or the trees from which they sprung

Yet, both dance upon the same screen.

And where is The Show? Inside the fleshy thing?

Maybe. But that thing is IN the world

The same as the seeds. Same as the trees.

And so… I savor the strange loop.

I watch the grass blow gently in a spring breeze

I watch my thoughts appear, dash about,

and then softly vanish

The world barrels on in front of me, inside of me,

and me in it — of it

There is inside. Outside. And, The Show.

They seem, to me, to be as inseparable

As the seeds and the trees

The grass and the wind

The sun and my warm skin