Make Tracks

One way it’s been said:
To live is to hunt—
Prey, host, sun, soil, wet—

To search. If you search,
As long as you search,
You’re life. If you stop

For more than a pause,
More than sleep, a rest,
For too long, you’re death,

Which means that no goal,
And no end to goals,
Can be reached for good,

Not for a slime mold,
A whale, or an oak.
Not for a Zen monk.

Give the death cults that—
From the first Nile tombs
To saints at the stake,

The ones who fixed hopes
On the far side saw
This side holds no rest.

But what would that be,
To be thoughts that know
They’re thoughts, on a cloud,

In the House of Dust,
In the glow of God,
To not have to hunt,

Not feel the least need
To search for more fuel,
To seek out new life?

To know that one knows
Is to want to know
More. No search, no more.