Song of Absence

Through the city streets the cars rush past.
Little roads; bridges over the river, trees, grey sky.
A house, the kitchen window half-open.
The kitten plays with its own claws.
My little girl—just turned two.
On the desk my grandmother's photograph—she loved me so dearly.

Table, coffee steam, fingers constantly touching the phone.
Writing, reading...
Car sounds, neighbors shouting, footsteps crushing gravel, the cat's meow.
Memory of thought.
Not thought, only memory,
an unidentified feeling.

Neither outside, nor inside.
Neither place, nor time, nor I—quite clearly.
Neither theory, nor calculation, nor measurement.
Neither rule, nor mysterious power, nor universal formula.
No god above the clouds.
Not you.
All clear.

What sees is not the eye.
Not the heart either, not anything else.
I only know—nothing is separate.
This world is not bound by invisible ties,
but in the absence of division...as if nothing exists.

And this emptiness, this intense absence is the key to everything.
Everything—but not any particular thing or being.
Neither conscious, nor unconscious.
Neither process, nor event, nor any concept.
Only that—which is, or seems to be happening.
Freedom lies right here.