Is It Not After All Exciting? Poem by RIC BASTASA

there are so many
things which we did not understand
fully but which delights us
no end

and you who understood them all
as you claim to be
why do you mourn all day?
why do you shake your body in fear
at night?

do not understand a flower,
or a sunset, do not try to figure out
an ocean

do you have to disassemble a memory
for you to comprehend its glory?
is it not enough that here we are
savoring a moment, beside each other,
delighting each other's presence?

why do you have to ask me what i have
done? where i am going? what are my plans?
for in all these i have no answers

here i am living my present moment,
gazing at the horizon, as the sun slowly sets
sinking into the restful bed of its history

for here i am emptied of all its worried
weary for the day's work, wanting not to think,
to relieve myself of understanding

to live like a tree, like a cloud, to dwell
in the silent darkness of the night
to savor tranquility, to seek the lake of
placidity, to look at the moon, eye to eye,
dimming life, like its dimming light

do you wish dawn? do you like dusk? do you still
wish for another morning?

the sound of the violin which you played last night
was so sad.

you tell me about a new door, an afterlife.
actually, it is that which stirs my mind.

a new life, a new place. Is it not after all
exciting?