Unlike Descartes, I’m not so sure if, or who “I” am,
Or who’s the “I” who questions this, Or when this “I” began.
Is the “I” who talks to me different from the “I” who listens?
“I” can’t be found in the brain, and it wanders off in sleep,
But soon returns to weave my dreams and revives memories of it “I” keep.
But is the “I” who re-members the antecedent “I” gone-by?
Should my memory dull and fail, would “I” too wane null and die?
Does this “I” persist in coma or alter in a trance?
Yet evaporate when lovers’ kiss or meditate on emptiness?
Perhaps this “I” comes and goes with thoughts arising from the mist,
Like stars that fill the evening sky that fade at dawn, though still exist.
So is this “I” my own construction made of thoughts and memory?
Or if it’s more, then who creates cosmic dust in our anatomy?
©Darlene Lancer July, 2001, 2019
