Something of Importance

”You shall not look through my eyes either,

nor take things from me,

You shall listen to all sides

and filter them from yourself.”

Walt Whitman

When I think I am doing
something of importance with gusto,
like trying to garden pompous
flowers in a stately fashion,
or when I am engaged in gobbledygook
while some viper ideas coil
inside taught-topics in a semi-circle
around my head,
I stop and listen to the raging wind,
which makes me shiver,
and I examine
second-hand wishes.

“Who needs a perfect skeleton
without flesh,
lungs that breathe,
or a heart beating inside?
Wouldn’t you rather be
a roofless ghost,
far-fetched and free,
haunting fresh horizons,
to sneak through unconsecrated rubbles?
Wouldn't you rather look at things
as if seeing them for the first time?
There are still mysteries,
not penetrated,
waiting inside
the tiniest particles and the coarsest grains
of creation.”

"So true," I nod.

"Why borrow others’ agony?
Neither a great strategy
nor originality,
scavenging through
already polished concepts.
This identity in ink,
so sweet a thought,
yet it deserves a life lived in abandon.
Otherwise, it’s nothing more than prostrating
in front of a
saffron-clad mountaintop figure
who thinks he has all the answers
but cannot even speak."

So, elated by the wind's counsel
that pierced through
to my soul,
I go back to my houseplants,
and forget about crushing the tiny weed
emerging heartily
at the base of the Kaffir Lily
inside a flowerpot
to reflect on
my good fortune
of having heard the raging wind.