I asked the Sun,
“Why do you shine?”
Morning came.
I asked the Moon,
“Why do you return?”
The tide rose.
I asked the Earth,
“Why do you carry life?”
A seed opened.
None had spoken.
Still, something
had answered.
For a long time,
I believed
there were three.
The Sun.
The Moon.
The Earth.
Then the leaf
lifted toward
the light.
The sea
lifted toward
the Moon.
Nothing stood alone.
The same light
arrived everywhere.
Only here
did it become
a forest.
The Sun
had not changed.
Still, light
entered the leaf.
The Moon
had not become
light.
Still, the sea
rose.
Morning belonged
to no one.
Yet everything
received it
differently.
I asked,
“Who taught you this?”
The Sun rose.
The Moon returned.
The Earth turned.
Nothing answered.
Nothing stopped.
The river returned
to the sea.
The leaf returned
to the soil.
The light returned
to the sky.
Nothing kept
what had made it.
Then I noticed
what had never
been absent.
The Sun
did not become
a forest.
The Earth
did not create
the light.
The Moon
did not own
the night.
Still,
a forest grew.
The tide returned.
Morning came.
None became more
by itself.
Then another
question appeared.
Not,
“Why does the Sun shine?”
But,
“Why can anything
become what it
could never be
alone?”
I waited.
Morning came.
Again.
The tide returned.
Again.
A seed opened.
Again.
Long before
I had asked,
the world
had already
been answering.
I had been asking
what they were.
They had been showing
how anything
comes to be.
The Sun rose.
The Moon returned.
The Earth turned.
Nothing answered.
Nothing stopped.
I looked again.