Through the Trees Pt. 2 - Mount Eerie

Misunderstood

And disillusioned

I go on describing this place

And the way it feels to live and die

The «natural world»

And whatever else it’s called

I drive in and out of town

Seeing no edge, breathing sky

And it’s hard to describe

Without seeming absurd

I know there’s no other world:

Mountains and websites

Dark smoke fills the air

Some from the fire in my house

Some from me driving around

I could see the lights of town

Through the trees on the ridge

On my way home in the dark

I meant all my songs

Not as a picture of the woods

But just to remind myself

That I briefly live

The gleaming stone

The moon in the sky at noon

There is no other world

And there has never been

I still walk: living, sleeping

Life in the real world of clouds

Clawing for meaning

Still when I see branches in the wind

The tumultuous place where I live

Calls out revealing

«Can you see the river in the branches

And know that it means you will die

And that pieces are churning?»

«Can you find a wildness in your body

And walk through the store after work

Holding it high?»

I’ve held aloft some delusions

From now on I will be perfectly clear:

There’s no part of the world more meaningful

And raw impermanence echoes in the sky

There is either no end

Or constant simultaneous end and beginning

A pile of trash

The fog on the hill

Standing in the parking lot, squinting