DESCARTES AND THE CRAZY MAN

Sometimes, when I wake up in the morning

The world is not what I want it to be

But the world is still the magnificent mystery

In which I am stuck between Plato’s ideals

And Jesus’s Kingdom and Buddha’s Nirvana

And the crazy man at the bus stop

The world—It is in your face. It won’t let you go.

Descartes got it right. Throw it all out. It is all

A bundle of thought knots: concepts—illusions

Birth and death and memory and hope

A dance with realities we don’t understand

You Think: The fact that you can doubt your doubts

Is a clue. There is a you behind the you you think

You are—who loves the ideals, lives in the Kingdom,

Dances in Nirvana and gives the crazy man at the bus stop

A hug—He stares at you thinking you are crazy.

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