quote unquote

Esse non est percipi. We live on a planet that is a small ball turning round a reasonably ordinary star, itself located in the outer reaches of a galaxy that is, in turn, just one of billions or possibly hundreds of billions. We share this world with about 1,000,000 named species, of which about 800,000 are animals. Of the animals, around 600,000 species are insects, and among these there are approximately 350,000 species of beetle. In the face of these numbers, a little humility is in order. While it may be consoling to believe that humans are the crown of creation and generate reality by means of consciousness and perception, the evidence tends not to support this position.

--billy mills [sustainable poetry]

a quick word from me.  i hope billy mills doesn't mind my quoting a chunk of his essay.  i reread that essay this afternoon and mills hits the notes of my own concern.  we are finite creatures on a small planet that orbits an ordinary star.  we must learn our humility.  to think we are the center of the universe is quite arrogant.  we -- me -- can barely comprehend large time.  a billion years is an abstraction.  i have only 6 or 7 or 8 decades on this planet.  in the presence of large time i am but a blip.  if even that.  and yet while i am alive i can enter into language and participate in the weave of presence.  i am neither above or below that weave.  i am a fraction of its part.  for that fraction i am grateful.  for me poetry is a life's practice of happiness.  even in misery.  i suppose i can work out a theory of happiness.  instead i shall live and write and let that be its mark.