The Cloud As A Self Floating In Space Poem by RIC BASTASA

I can only think of a cloud
as the only comparison

i think of it, and thinking makes it more like it

thoughts floating, self floating,
no anchor is visible no rope

no reason is enough to hold it and put it
steadily upon an accepted principle
a universal dogma

i am tired of catching a self
it will be futile, night and day,
it is the same trembling
saying i do not know anymore how to live
i do not know anymore how to be calm

perhaps the floating is just the usual way
of things to be steady some other time
after it has spent all that is necessary

no one feels for me, or for us
we are tired too
making configurations

it is the same birds that form in our minds
even boats, even kites, even leaves
what we feel is always the fleet
of flitting moments

let us leave it that way.
Let things simmer down a bit.

Float, float self, do not attempt
to hold on to anything

be like a cloud, go anywhere
be free

until space is traversed
completely, and then at that end
you may be steady again

like a continent of trees and stones and
dried magma

by then when it is through
give a little way to a crack
for our new selves to grow again.