Who Supervises You?

For Joel

Belief in you is

a hand on the heart, and the other

hand outstretched to the rusted mountains

tearfully inquiring as to who

as you are there--living the witness--

supervises the rest of nature.

who?

Who had the idea to give the mind a spirit

that finds its mate in a desert, or a body,

or a magic tree, whatsoever?

My dharma teacher said, in the depths of his

addiction, he sat at his bed every night

and at the advice of his elders, without any faith

, prayed.

I have no evidence that god intervened,

he said, no reason to believe he did.

but it doesn't matter if it is real.

It worked.

It worked.

Thus belief in you is a childs prayer,

a portal to the beginning,

a feather of truth,

a breath with the mountain,

a moment, if that is all to be spared,

closer to the end.