We are Three p. 18.

A peaceful face twists with the poisonous nail
of thinking. A golden spade
sinks into a pile of shit.

Suppose you loosen an intellectual knot.
The sack is empty. You’ve grown old
trying to untie such difficulties.
So loosen a few more, why knot!

There is a big one fastened at your throat,
the problem of whether you’re in harmony
with that which has no definition.
Try solving that.

You examine substance and accidents.
You waste your life making subject and verb agree.
You edit hearsay.

You study artifacts and think you know the Maker,
so proud of having thought that syllogism.

A thinker collects and links up proofs.
A mystic does the opposite.
He lays his head on a person’s chest
and sinks into the answer.

Thinking gives off smoke
to prove the existence of fire.
The mystic sits within the burning.

Imagination loves to discover shapes
in rising smoke, but it’s a great mistake
to leave the fire for that filmy sight.