Gratis

"write a 300-word letter to someone who changed your life"

I must admit I am
Who I am, insofar as I am,
Because of you, lusus naturae,

Not a person but legion,
Not a name but all the names
And the beast within them.

Where did you come from?
Where will you go, roaring as usual,
Into the dark when done?

The birds outside my window,
However hungry, however alive, don't know you,
Nor do their favorite branches,

Nor the stones under trees,
Nor the precious things hiding under stones,
Nor the greedy ball itself


That we all spin around
Hanging on desperately, pulled down, even you,
But all this is you.

You've eaten so many gods,
Devoured so many civilizations busy hymning you,
And made all you devour.

You are the invisible boundary
That an animal's brain imagines is there,
But not the fiery tongue

That babbles from the tower
Of darkness, "fools, your reward is neither
Here nor there." Only words,

Only meanings, only prancing bestiaries
Every sinew and gene now gone under,
And neither sound nor paint,

That's you, empire of nothings,
Elaborator of all explanations, interpretations of dreams,
Not the poet, the poem,

Not the sweating, bearded man
On his back on the rickety scaffolding,
The angels on the ceiling


That he daubs, that's you,
You, the only true maker of things,
Artifice the artificer, the sign,

The nongenetic transmission of information,
The information transmitted, the tower of madness,
God sprouting children to eat.

I want to thank you
Because my thanks are slaves to you,
Because you are my thanks.

Every pattern that I reccognize
As encoded, as meaningful, as a tool
For describing and understanding worlds

Is you. I am only
The recognition you've made of your self,
Vortex spiraling into the night.