To a Descendant Reading My Poems

Looking for me?
I posed for posterity.
I used words to cover my tracks.
Did my sincerity
sufficiently conceal my truth?

Can you deduce what I was then
from idiosyncratic verses
and a few ambiguous titles?
Can you deduce what I am now
from what you have deduced from then?

Is that too much like sifting ancient light
to find a long-gone distant star?

Then, I was X (I marked my spot)
modified by youth and age and vanity
and love and suffering and indifference.
Now, I am X modified by my purposes,
as you are Y trapped in your own contexts.

Where X equals pure Me,

and Y equals pure You,

there is nothing stands between us,
only time.

(Happy Birthday Grandpa xxx)

Meditation

I sat
And sought
The tree-ness
Of the tree
And found the tree's
Own search to be
The me-ness
Of the me.

Final Communication

I swore that
when I died
I'd move the halls
of heaven and hell
to struggle back
and tell my loved ones
how I'd fared.

I hadn't bargained
on being changed
so much by freedom
especially
freedom from
the self.

If I went back,
who would I say
I was?