It Stopped Raining

Maybe just two kinds of world?
World happening or stories,
Including explanations.

Story worlds are encysted
In the world that’s happening,
And are no more worlds themselves

Than raindrops on the window
Mirroring forest are trees,
But maybe that’s not the point.

We’re talking about your worlds.
Even your world happening
As you experience it

Is encysted in something
You will never apprehend,
And you know it. But for you,

Your experience of world
Comes in two distinct models,
Everything that’s happening

As the brain recreates it,
Makes and updates predictions
About it, your consciousness,

And the worlds within that world
That have their own, inner laws,
Using experiences

For construction purposes
But not for making the rules.
And as always with guesses

Like these that split worlds in two,
As soon as there’s two, there’s three—
On the far side of stories,

Bookending experience,
You could say a third world is
The story world’s nemesis,

The world of dream. Then that splits—
Any one means there are two.
Soon everything’s glittering.