by Megan Hollingsworth

And the life was dwelling
Nowhere and everywhere
And the feeling was being
Alone and crowded
And the motion was moving
Fast to be stopped
Short of a destination
Beginning again slowly
To get somewhere
Other than here
Until arriving there,
The still point of which everything arises
And for which everything gives way
Where one weeps
while watching a fly eat
from the spoon.

What is learned in school
Are but names, isolated facts and figures
That only books recall.
What is retained of that learning
Is but how to dispense ketchup from a bottle
And a sense that more is missing.
Until the breath is lost,
So that what it means to breathe is found.

Then realized in a mind is the privilege
That a fly would see fit
To share the spoon,
An elephant would trust enough
To invite his grief,
And a sequoia would endow
The origin story.

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Megan Hollingsworth, MS, is writer and creative director at ex·tinc·tion wit·ness, a collaborative art project with primary focus on personal and planetary peacemaking. She lives in Bozeman, Montana, with her son. See meganhollingsworth.com and extinctionwitness.org.