The Nature of Your World

Sample the current racing
Around whatever you are—
For what can it be tested?

Mostly words and images,
Plus quite a bit of music.
In the foreground, physical

Sensations; in the background,
Life forms, landscape, the weather.
All are available worlds;

None is inherently more
Important in the current.
You want to report, but what?

For some reason, a small scene
In an American poem
Blossoms uppermost in mind—

Not your memory, of course,
Except as reconstruction,
And doubly odd for being

In German, a child speaking
In German with a soldier,
An American soldier,

In the ruins at the end
Of World War II—Wo bist du?
Hier bin ich! Obviously,

A shy game of peekaboo.
Why would that line come to mind
When you’re seeking a sample

From your own experience
That could present some essence
Of the nature of your world?