Before we named
the world
who decided
these were
three things?
I searched.
Not in books.
Not in history.
Not in language.
Somewhere,
long before
I arrived,
someone looked
up in the sky
and spoke of air.
Someone sat
before a flame
and spoke of fire.
Someone knelt
beside a river
and spoke of water.
Names remained.
Questions did not.
Perhaps no one
ever asked it.
Or perhaps,
every question
begins late.
Every search
begins somewhere.
The search
began with air.
The wind bent
the trees.
Leaves revealed
the wind.
Clouds gathered
above mountains.
Then, something
did not belong.
The clouds
were not air.
They were water.
Looking for one,
another appeared.
I turned to fire.
Wood became
warmth.
Stone held
its heat.
The flame reached
upward.
Yet it asked
for air.
Without air,
it vanished.
It was never
alone.
It turned water
into mist.
Again,
looking for one,
another appeared.
So I turned
to water.
The river carried
leaves.
Rain carried
the sky.
Water rested
in my hands.
It escaped
into the air.
Air returned it
as rain.
Again,
looking for one,
another appeared.
Air
carried water.
Carried warmth.
Fire
carried air.
Carried water.
Water
carried sky.
Carried heat.
None appeared
by itself.
Air.
Fire.
Water.
The closer
I looked,
the harder
it became
to tell
where one
ended
and another
began.
None revealed
itself alone.
Then I wondered
whether
I had mistaken
separation
for understanding.
Nature never
introduced them
separately.
Only we had.
Without names,
how would we speak?
How would we remember?
How would we teach?
Somewhere,
along the way,
we began
mistaking the names
for the world itself.
Air became a thing.
Fire became another.
Water became a third.
Nothing arrived alone.
Again,
Air led to fire.
Fire led to water.
Water led to air.
Somewhere,
the search changed.
Every answer became
another question.
The question
was never,
“What is this?”
Perhaps
it had always been,
“What does this
belong to?”
Or, “What cannot
exist without it?”
Or, “What have
we separated
that was never
separate?”
I do not know
who named air.
Or fire.
Or water.
I only know
that the names
have survived
longer than
the questions.
Every civilization
inherits answers.
Few inherit
the questions
that gave birth
to them.
Fewer still ask
whether
those were
the only questions
worth asking.
I have no new
names to offer.
Only
an old question.
Who decided
these were
three things?
Perhaps no one.
Perhaps the world
was never divided.
Perhaps we inherited
the habit of seeing
it that way.
I no longer
expect an answer.
I only expect
a new direction
of search.