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Page 105

And yet, I have been apart from this body --
it was a gentle parting, leaving,
not in pain nor forced out by pulling the
ejection lever (that is, by taking a drug),
nor, really, was it a leaving, for I did not leave,

but, instantly, was elsewhere: For example,
that time at camp, age 12, when I lay back,
all the way back, on pine needles to look up
through spiraling branches along rapidly tapering
trunks, depth beyond depth, to a summer sky
crossed by puffy cumuli, vast cloud fleets
with wind-swollen radiant sails, and these
I suddenly saw in full perspective, as if my eyes
caressed each vapory convolution, as if
I'd always seen sky and clouds with one eye closed,
and now suddenly I saw with both eyes,

and even more suddenly I filled up the sky,
clouds passing through me, knowing myself
nothing at all, and yet I was -- I am -- I,
and all this was familiar: I knew I was I and
always had been, knew it with more certainty
than anything I'd ever known; could feel
and see each shift of pine needle in the
piney breeze, felt a compassion and good will
toward my tiny body lying there -- a feeling that,
as a 12-year-old, I could not have felt,
for it was a wisdom beyond that rather whiny
and desperate-to-be-liked and clownish 12-year-old.

Then, noticing the other ants around the campfire,
I, some masquerading I, felt pride at my knowing
what they could not, which is when, suddenly
(why are all these things, so persistent in themselves,

sudden?) -- suddenly, I was a pudgy, smart-alecky
12-year-old, lying on pine needles, and Mickey
tossed sand in my face, and, blinded, I cried
at my own silliness (he and the counselors thinking
it was because of him).

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