In the instant, it’s real to me

Is it madness
when in moments of unrivaled clarity
the cosmos drops its shy façade
to speak, candidly
to me and
me alone?

Is it madness
when the thoughts of every soul
living and dead turn to aether
and diffuse into my conscious, now
so sensitive that each time the Earth
breathes
it tingles, a billion pinpricks
against the skull?

Is it madness
when before a great tree
in an instant I relive its thousand-year past
learn its pain and cherish its triumph
knowing that those that came first
gave it a name
long lost
except to me?
I know it, I know all.
I know it, I know.

Sometime soon all this knowledge will
dissolve into pieces so fine
that no hands could put them back in
their rightful place, in glory.

Is it madness?
Is it joy, beauty?

It isn’t real
except in the moment
it is to me.

Author: AJM

Writer, sociologist, Unitarian Universalist. View all posts by AJM