from "You Stand"
If history is proof or an example
we stand in the hard place, inscribed and sealed.
The statement “If I die” is never true.
Both truth and mystery require “when.”
Why do even sages talk this way?
One answered: “Before my time” is understood.
No one expects to live forever.
Another said: It means, “If I should lose
my self, my soul, my way while yet alive…,”
but then the statement must
be followed by a “then.”
My thoughts grew tangled in the trees,
the lime trees and the wind.
Perhaps the living part proclaims its rights
and—speaking for itself and not
the mortal part—must always be preferred
in conversation. So I understood
The Book of Moses when he said, “Choose life.”
—LW, After Adam: The Books of Moses