Let me sit through my desire to stand up.
The sunlight draws me where I will not go,
Sculpting silent shadows through the stuff of air,
Thin atmospheres of trees. I sit through my desire to stand up,
Not knowing whence it comes,
Nor wishing, though uncaring, to submit
My legs to its anonymous command:
Not knowing how my thinking
Whispers down my body to my legs
And makes them stand.
I would sit, standing behind my seated self
And, standing, know just what I had to do;
In quiet, with the silent pulsing of a heart and lungs somewhere,
Like the sight of leaves and branches in the breathing atmosphere.
I stand, silent, through my desire to stand up.