Be a euglena in the darkness, whipping your tail,
or a paramecium of pygmy hairs, rowing in the unseen.
Expect less from the world. Always assume.
Have the sort of under-glance
that is nearly without conscience,
the eyes of a dog digging a backyard hole.
You will be surprised at the divinity
of the commonplace. Oaf, juvenile, egoist.
Be unafraid—be an uncouth dummy
with something naïve to prove.
Concentrate on the middle distance,
beyond presence or gaze.
Death's crystalline irony will be
a mother greater than precarious life,
the rusted tin can cradling the orchid.
The original is the tingling of a tooth.
