There is an ‘I’ Within Me . . .

By Richard Saicho

There is an ‘I’ within me standing proud

of all it sees, to give commands,

living there alone, homunculus enthroned,

beholden to no rule or law

except the matrix of its past.

It knows no god;

no mother’s gaze

has shaped its purpose or its life,

no path was open at its birth

save that of all the ancient roads

its predecessors took

through the seas and the forest,

touched by light and darkness, pain and joy,

remaking itself a billion times

until it came to rest within my mind.

Am I at peace with this invisible self,

and should I be?

Should I try and form a corporate being

who rules from my self conscious perch

all motions and all thought,

like governing a thousand horses

pulling a chariot through a maze?

Or should I leave my inclinations limp

while the ‘I’, with some mysterious wisdom,

guides my every move?

We think we know this ‘I.’

We hope it is a friend.

It has no friends —

only memories of enemies

who strove to stop the flow

of its existence

at every turn,

and failed.