We avoid traps, the jagged rocks
in order to avoid being snapped and bitten and torn.
We accept being snapped and bitten in traps
in order to accept reality
which is (partly oh partly)
to accept the experience of being snapped and bitten.
Or do we avoid the traps
in order to avoid experience at all?
Which is to accept a single trepid experience
as though there were no other.
Which is to accept no Other:
Like the graceful Other of the prow of a boat:
canoe, sailboat, rowboat, dragon ship.
What other form so descends
from a history (unwritten—
controlled only in experience
and memory—experience experienced)
that ascends from form to the same form—
the composition of function and form.
Never static. Never quite changing.
Like the soul. The molecular constancy of water
made to glow in rippled wakes
behind a grace of controlled interference.