Comfort, Consolation, Contentment

A body alone is simple
In its nest of complex systems,

Each hoard of lives within living
Simple in having few functions—

Collect resources from living
And non-living concentrations

In the vicinity, convert
Them into your living system,

Excrete what your system can’t use,
Repeat, grow, double your system.

At any moment, some of each
Living system is becoming

Living and some is going back
To being non-living and some

Is becoming living again.
The collapse of any whole system

Is converted into the churn
And stirred until well-mixed again,

But you, you are an awareness,
An ignis fatuus floating,

Nothing but gaslight, but something
That contemplates its hovering.

You come and go while your systems
Go on, living and unliving,

They all could go on without you,
But you won’t go on without them,

And where in this is there comfort?
Where in this, for awareness, comes

Contentment and consolation?
Call yourself sojourner, tourist.

Consider this your vacation,
Your idle existence. Know while

You’re aware, you’re away from home.
Home is the end of awareness.