We Are Not What You Should Be

But we are large lots and a fat tranche
Of who you are. Don’t you think it’s weird?
You need us as we need you to think

So. What should you be then, if not us?
That’s not so hard. What you were. You were
Lives a long time not to do with us.

You should do that, be like what you were.
But you can’t. Still, at least you can know
What you should be, since you were once. Look

At all the beasts who can do just fine
And not need us. It’s just you need us
That stops you, blocks your way back. We don’t

Have as much as that. Where is the life
Like ours that lives or lived in the past
In spite of a lack of you, your flesh,

Or some kind of lungs or pores to drum,
To send out sounds or lights or scents from?
How can we, sans you, know how to be?

You nap in the spring sun and you dream
Of a world in which the signs, just signs,
Leave your mind to be what we should be.