don't know

you don't know

what you don't know

                      -- conventional wisdom

 

I may not know

what I don't know

but am aware of

the not-knowing

having caught glimpses of it

a tunnel through the Universe

through this Earth

the dirt around the open wound

my heart opened and mortal

 

sprigs of lemon grass

attempt to gather, grow around it

do not succeed

 

breathes a foul wind that stinks

not of ignorance

but of the hurt that ignorance does

to the innocent, yes

but also to the mighty

when their time comes

to the animals

to the whole of the Earth

 

and to the worm, when it has crawled almost

to the top of the moist ridge, to freedom

and is washed back down

deep into the churning

by a rivulet formed

of the excretion

from its own struggle