on being consumed

I also was inspired by some conversations I had with the Teacher and the Fisherman last night and wrote this out a few minutes ago:

The Teacher keeps a box of worms,
which he feeds the scraps of vegetables
from our cooking.
They eat and live and reproduce
in the scraps,
till all that's left
is good earth for planting.

One day the Teacher had a vision
of a gaping maw in his mind,
always consuming itself
like the snake wrapped around the world,
hungry for its own tail.
It was like the worms,
senseless and always eating
the ground in which they live.

When he saw this mouth
the Teacher felt terror,
for it is a frightening thing
to realize you are being eaten
by your own head.

It never ends.

How do you think the trees feel
when they are torn from the ground,
or a babe born
from its mother's womb?
Scared, yes, but full of wonder.
It is only in being eaten
that we truly know
we are alive.
Terror and wonder
coming into being
over and over again
as we consume and are consumed.

And once we digest ourselves
all that's left is ground,
good for planting next year's crops.


If it wasn't already obvious, I've been reading a lot of Rumi's poetry recently. Sometimes a few beautiful lines are the only thing standing between us and all existence.