What does a person need to do to know his or her place in the world?

To be sane in a mad world is hard on the spirit,

worse on the heart,

sad for the brain,

their holy vision is fat and swollen money,

they dream of its sums,

they drive us to anger and

calculation, cruelty and neglect,

we build no-kill sanctuaries for dogs and cats,

while children sleep with filth and rats,

we speak in the dead language,

of corporations and banks,

when I was a young man,

growing up at long last,

I thought of myself as tall as a tree,

how large and strong and upright I was,

I would soon reach the stars,

my holy vision of the world

was so sweet and pure,

and now, forty years or so later,

I am growing the other way, down

and inward, I no longer reach for the

sky, but for the spirit,

I am beginning to grow in my soul, and

I can touch the stars with my fingertips.