Sentience

I see my sentience

is entirely thought —

pervasive loops which constitute

my sense of being here,

of who I am

I see how easily the perturbations

(suggestions of alarm, of need to see

what I have wanted as an outcome

come to pass,

the wavering braids of hope and fear

and then the closing sentence)

can form and sway what I have called my life

But this is not my all:

These things which claim

to be the outer world,

and chance, and fate,

and what might come of me today,

are currents in the same domain of thought

In which I would be rudderless

if not for this release:

to give it up,

to still my oar,

to calm my care

and ride the stream in gratitude

everywhere.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 18, 2015