The disconnect

I.

A Swede named Rolf
wanted to know and so he asked:
what exactly is the mind?
and how did that Buddhist monk
set himself on fire
and not show the signs of pain?

Rolf is like me, a new New Yorker,
asking questions,
not expecting a response.
Rolf is not like me, he’s recovering –
from a heart attack last week.
Although I’ve had my own struggles
with things concerned the heart.

II.

On and off switches:
the most basic form of interaction
between man and machine.

Sunlight finding the gap
between a defensive line of clouds 
(nimbostratus),
in a place so barren, so remote
that only a lone, lost moose 
(alces alces gigas)
will observe 
the most complicated form of beauty
between universe and earth.

My goddamn cell phone,
set to vibrate (or palpitate) 
do you see where I’m getting – 
is the only interaction
I have with you.

III.

Dear Rolf, I have no answer,
but know a story:
a moose, wandering hundreds and hundreds of miles
from where she should be,
so far away she’s unprotected – 
she’s dinner basically – 
and do moose know beauty?

Do moose know pain?
Bear with me:
If the monk switched pain to OFF
maybe then so can this moose,
it’s all in the mind, we say,
and we leave behind the struggle and anguish
and drift
far away.

And so by switching to off,
we arrive someplace barren, remote
with a silly notion of security.

Yet the destination
is where that sunshine 
boldly vibrates on your hip,
breaking through
to complicate things,
to connect things,
to turn it all on.