Occasional Impressions

Secret joys and public spectacles

Knowing

I am stone
I do not know this
For I have no brain, no mind, no consciousness
You use your imagination and your knowledge
in an act of empathy
You imagine yourself as me
who cannot imagine for myself
For I have no brain, no mind, no consciousness

I am bird
I do not know this
For I have no language to name types and categories
I soar, I fly, I feed, I die
but have no words to speak of it
Am I conscious of my soaring, my flying, my feeding, my dying?
I do not know
and have no words with which to tell
But you can imagine yourself as me
soaring, flying, feeding, dying
No, not dying
Of death you have experience, but not of dying
And I have no words to tell of what I feel and know

I am Ian
I do know this
for people tell me so
‘Ian this...’, ‘Ian that...’, they say
so yes, I must be Ian
I do have words
in which to think and speak and listen
I can formulate, I can communicate
I can imagine, I can create
I can describe stone, I can categorise bird
I can create a building, form a statue
make a likeness of a bird, imagined soaring, flying, feeding,dying
But I cannot imagine the dying
for of death I have experience but not of dying

I am God
I am what I am
You cannot know what I am like
I have no brain
Do I have consciousness? Do I have mind?
You cannot know what it is like to be me
unless I let you know
and mostly I keep you guessing
Ian I Gracey

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