It’s dusk on the hill as

the heady sky rotates slowly above,

silently aglow with vivid pulsing pink

around the edges, like a child’s fingers

eclipsing the dying flashlight of the sun.

Tangled grass sticks warm and damp

to the small of my back, a silent kiss

I can’t remember

if I just woke up, or if I’m still floating

somewhere in the dark up there,

everything smells like fog and honeysuckle

and the wide, fragrant exhalation

of the far-off ocean.

It makes me want to cry.

Where am I?

Will I remember this when the rest has all gone,

when I’m alone with my years

clogging up my artieries like syrup,

leaching memories away, like how bleach

draws colors from bedsheets?

Will I still see myself lying here?

It doesn’t matter.

Here are my fingertips

fused with the earth,

my gaze sailing in the clouds, my lungs

full of some sort of silent rapture.

All of it together in a single

phosphorescent spark of time,

this moment.

I’m not just an observer.

I am part of it,

part of the tumble of existence,

the wild dance of the universe.

So as the light fades on the hill,

and the years blend into each other

like oil paint on the canvas of my life

I guess there’s only one definition.

I’m not a name, not a person

but a shared consciousness

an intangible entity

a light, a sound, a thought

drifting somewhere with the rest of it,

and I’m happy.

Right now, I am here.