What You Are

You are a mass of cells that have adhered
To each other all their lives, that signal

To each other, depend on each other,
Kill themselves on schedule or surrender

To being reabsorbed by each other,
Clones that go along with the neighborhood,

Sensing collective specializations,
And you are nothing like any of this.

One winter morning you stand on the edge
Of a blackwater tarn in the mountains,

And you watch rain and snow, then rain again
Join the surface, and you watch the small waves

And the faint shapes disappearing below
The silver mist that rises, and you know.