Is That So

"The koan is something like, 'What is this?' or something, but it's not that, exactly."

Wise or foolish, there's no escape
From being aware of being
When all we are is awareness,
Unless we are no longer there.

And what is it we're aware of?
Myself, I'm nine parts fantasy
And, most of the rest, memory
Torn up to make more fantasies.

It does sound like a good idea
To give up the fantasizing
And live only in the newest past,
The ongoing just-gone called "now,"

But the delta of the just-gone,
However complexly braided,
Is expansively shallow marsh
Sinking in the gulf of the past.

Whatever it is to exist
While all tangled up in living,
To be aware of existing
Is to imagine existence,

To imagine swimming upstream,
To want to return to the source.
But awareness is neither fish
Nor water, only the river.