It Falls Away

I say this skin is mine.
What was it yesterday but a thought,
an impulse, that makes the flesh
restore itself?

Tomorrow, cells shall dry
and wither and rub off
what I call me.
Yet I will remain
for now.

Hair grows the length of a year
and roots show darker than the summer.
In spring, emmerging from the winter's cold,
I shall own hair long or short,
less or more, but different than
when summer ended.

Yet am I not me, still?
Do I remain still?

Nails and polish, teeth and gums
nose hairs, armpit fuzz
skin and stubble and eyelashes
found on the floor and in the bed.
Discarded without conscious effort.
Am I the food for bed bugs and roaches?
Have I left myself there,
and there and over there?

And what of my limbs more crooked with age?
What of those teeth and hairs?
What of my toes and fingers?
If tomorrow they fall away
Does that being I call "me" remain?

And of the senses that fade
Which one has to go to carry me with it?
My sight, my hearing?
Smell, touch, or taste?
Or that pulsing brain
that factory of reactions
that fades and forgets--
when does it stop holding the key
of "me"
together?

What cell
What fiber
what mineral
what spark
contains the essence
that heralds -- I am?

I am
It falls away.
I was
falls away.

The possessions
The riches
The body
The mind
fall away.

Impermanence.
It all falls away.
The ability to discern
some attributes
that make up
what I think of as "me"
ah! those things leave "me"
as a hollowed husk
of dried flesh.

So it is.
So then...
when is the definition
ever complete and true?

If I cast off the possessions,
the riches, the body and the mind
as I would effortlessly
let fall away the remnants of yesterday's
skin and hair
there
without the mind's thoughts
or hopes or fears
on the loss of "me"
what would be left
beyond the defining
and the undefining?

The omnipotent
omnipresence
of all
of nothing
beyond the essence
of the inessential
beyond what was or never was
or is or never is
or will be or never will be