We live our lives of human passions，
cruelties， dreams， concepts，
crimes and the exercise of virtue1
in and beside a world devoid2
of our preoccupations， free
from apprehensionthough affected3，
certainly， by our actions. A world
parallel to our own though overlapping4.
We call it Nature； only reluctantly
admitting ourselves to be Nature too.
Whenever we lose track of our own obsessions5，
our self-concerns， because we drift for a minute，
an hour even， of pure （almost pure）
response to that insouciant6 life：
cloud， bird， fox， the flow of light， the dancing
pilgrimage of water， vast stillness
of spellbound ephemerae on a lit windowpane，
animal voices， mineral hum， wind
conversing7 with rain， ocean with rock， stuttering
of fire to coalthen something tethered
in us， hobbled like a donkey on its patch
of gnawed8 grass and thistles， breaks free.
No one discovers
just where we've been， when we're caught up again
into our own sphere （where we must
return， indeed， to evolve our destinies）
but we have changed， a little.
