There are parts of me
the universe
will never know.
The small humiliations.
The private griefs.
The thoughts I never said
out loud.
But the trees know.
They have watched me
standing beneath them,
saying nothing.
And the trees
are the universe.
So maybe
the universe has been listening
the whole time.
Maybe every molecule
I have carried through this life
belongs to the same old machinery:
carbon,
salt,
water,
stardust,
briefly arranged
into a man
who thinks he is separate.
What a strange comfort,
to realize
I have never been hidden
from anything.
I am not known
because someone
is watching me.
I am known
because I am made
of the same thing
as everything else.