How Can We Be Now? Poem by RIC BASTASA

now you must dance alone.
you can dance without me.
i am not your feet. i am mine.
then the music stops.
now you must dance alone even
without the music.
you must know that the music
is in your heart.
it is not with me, it is not
with the world.
it is you. The dance, The music.

now you do not ask any
question.
Tired perhaps because there
are no answers.

now you are the question.
i am not the question.
you are what you are.
and you shall always be.

without me, without you.
we have turned to air to mist
to water in everywhere.

from the beginning we should have
learned what we have no names.
no self, no hate, no love, no world.

i am imagining once again, what we
cannot anymore imagine.
In all gratitude and respect we must
thank what we were once for without it
how can we be now?