Need Calls Knowledge out²
Hold the Knowing – Be the Knowing³
One who Understands Handles the World
As if they have it in the Palm of their Hand⁴
Knowledge is Dark, Salt, Clear, Moving, &
Utterly Free – drawn from Earth’s cold hard
Mouth, Flowing & Drawn, Flowing & Flown⁵
Knowing Something is Worthless compared to
Knowing the Difference between Many Things⁶
Unless it grows out of Ourselves No Knowledge
Is really Ours – it is only a Borrowed Plumage⁷
Tiger got to Hunt, Bird got to Fly, and Man
Got to sit and wonder “Why, Why, Why?”
Tiger got to Sleep, Bird got to Land, and
Man got to tell himself he Understand⁸
Embrace quiet knowledge: Unbound,
Unbattered: Coextensive with Space⁹
By Knowledge we grow too Bright
To hit the nerve of Feebler Sight¹⁰
¹ Padmasambhava tr. Gyurme Dorje, The Tibetan Book of the Dead
² Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea
³ Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
⁴ Confucius tr. Edward Slingerland, Analects 3.11
⁵ Elizabeth Bishop, At the Fishhouses
⁶ Carl Phillips, Ghost Choir
⁷ D.T. Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism
⁸ Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle
⁹ Susan Griffin, Archive
¹⁰ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Uriel