Is the Self
an apparition
barely in view,
then gone, like a last
bit of mist leaving trees,
pushed by a breeze?
Is it a certainty
like a boulder that shapes
the flow of a small
creek singing, bells
in the distance ringing?
Does it simply
seem to be,
out of necessity?
Perhaps the self's
a symbolic personage,
like a mossy-bricked
parsonage in an old village:
It stands, orienting
the town around itself,
a landmark, but not the core
of the town, nor the whole
village, no certainly
not the whole.
Hans Ostrom 2024
