Another Note in the Woods

Journey. You know it’s not.

It’s not a battlefield,

Not a drawn-out conflict.

It contains all those things,

But it’s defined by none

Of them—the mind is one,

Albeit broken, or

Scattered, distributed,

Running in parallel

Across millions of skulls,

A forest, a lab, a

Wilderness of mirrors

Signing to each other.

You may journey through it,

You may battle for it,

But the same may be said

For any vast landscape,

And the mind involves more

Than the vastest landscape,

The most extensive woods—

Maybe more than any

Ecosystem. You perch

In your corner, vendor,

Craftsperson, laborer

In a trading depot

Of one entrepôt—

Functional as a shelf,

As a switchboard—also

Goods temporarily

Housed on that shelf, also

A flickering signal

And a part of the mind

That signals to itself,

That, even in conflicts,

Can neither disengage

Nor emerge from its woods.