The Gravity of Enjoyment

There’s a center there, but
It’s hard to ascertain.
Who can center others?

Who can center oneself?
Galaxy and island
Universe, your species,

Bound together by mind,
Tangled up in language,
Isolated in night.

It’s not true you were once
In harmony with life,
Communing with all things.

You’re so lonely, you wish
It were true, and you talk
Amongst yourselves of it,

Claiming there was a time
Of Dreaming and Eden
And animistic ease,

That once you knew the world
In intimate kinship
Terms—brothers and sisters

Among creatures and trees,
Spirits in everything,
You conversing with them.

But you were projecting,
Throwing your language nets,
And you’re projecting still.

It makes it hard to find
The center of your swirl,
The core of your spiral,

Obscured by gas and dust.
But it’s there, and you spin
Around that shining pit

Of the mind’s enjoyment
Of its own awareness
That binds your universe.