Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth.

A day so happy. Fog lifted early. I worked in the garden. Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers. There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess. I know no one worth my envying him.

Learning To believe you are magnificent. And gradually to discover that you are not magnificent. Enough labor for one human life.

You see how I try To reach with words What matters most And how I fail.

They used to pour millet on graves or poppy seeds To feed the dead who would come disguised as birds. I put this book here for you, who once lived So that you should visit us no more.

He returns years later, has no demands. He wants only one, most precious thing: To see, purely and simply, without name, Without expectations, fears, or hopes, At the edge where there is no I or not-I.

The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.