To Know

The bees know more than I,

The mutt rolling in the carcass of a lost salmon,

The mushrooms, the mailman working six days a week,

The garbage man, the gray beetle,

The moss that hangs from Tongass spruce.

The goose, the louse,

The raven pecking trash by the highway

The buttons marked 1 2 3, the elevator that obeys them,

The carrot, the strawberries clutching their wayward seeds,

The dandelion naked in the wind,

The gopher, the groundhog,

The tired clerk selling cigarettes at a 24/7,

The drunk who buys them,

The telephone wire, the phones that feed it,

The baker at 4 in the morning, the sourdough that brought him there,

The woman he left sleeping, mouth open, fingers curled,

The sewer rat, the blow fly, everything they feed on.

To know purpose is to know enough.

I know nothing at all.