Just a Droplet
A poem about life, philosophy, and letting go of ego (from the POV of a character in my novel)
For all these years I’ve protested
the many wrongs done to me
and to others; so much cruelty,
I couldn’t let it be:
for fighting and submitting were
the only paths I knew—
the subject and the object always
existing, always two.
But suddenly I’m starting to see
a plane beyond this stage,
this drama of actor and acted-upon
that’s kept me in its cage.
Life is a flowing river, made
of billions of molecules,
knowing only constant movement,
not any fixed paths or rules.
Life is experience happening,
one complex teeming whole
with infinite points of awareness,
one of which is my soul.
There’s more to the story than what I see
and there is also less—
when I give up trying to dictate life,
I also give up that stress
and just inhabit each moment,
even moments when I feel pain
arising with actions of others.
In the “what is” I remain.
I may still take some action
that my “what is” leads me to,
but I claim no control for the outcome.
I feel, I think, I do.
But this "I" is just a droplet
in the river, not a me.
And thus, whatever comes,
my heart is still, my mind free.
