It has carried you to this perfect moment.
It is the ox, pulling the plow of your mind
through the world.

It is the modest donkey, carrying the anointed one
to his destiny, tenderly treading
the carpet of palms, understanding
that it, too, is the anointed one.

It is the roller coaster of your soul,
the parachute that softens your descent.

It is the pipe with which you smoke
the opium of experience.
It is the hand of your genius,
with which your mind scribbles
E = mc2 on the chalkboard of the world.

Without this body and its comforts
and its discomforts, you could not know.

Without your body, this cup of coffee
would not be a sacrament.
The run for the bus wouldn’t
make you smile and glow.

Without your body, you couldn’t grieve
deeply and well.  

Without it, no tears crowd your eyelids
and tell you, This is real, and it has a cost,
and it bears dividends.

No blush proves you belong
to the human tribe and you care
what other humans think of you.

No rough guffaw bursts out
as your boss walks by.  

“I am my Beloved’s, and my Beloved is mine.”

This world makes us of itself and for itself.
We in our turn continue and perfect it.  

I stand near the locust tree crowned with thorns,
hold my palm to its bark. I breathe in
the breath it exhales. It breathes in
the breath I exhale.  
We are a perfect circle.

I am my Beloved’s, and my Beloved is mine.  
My body has delivered me
to this, the perfect moment.
I was made to be exactly here, exactly now.

If you are listening, you were made
to be here, too.
You breathe in the breath I exhale.
I breathe in the breath you exhale.  
We are a perfect circle.

We and the world who made us
are one being. Who knows
what our presence in this perfect moment
will allow us and the world who created us
to create?