Why Do You Want To Try Psilocybin?
(Questionnaire for a study)
Because meditation, mindfulness, yoga
claim they can anchor our minds to the here and now,
yet I can no more still my brain
than I could my kayak
on the rapids of the Tennessee.
Swinging my paddle at bubbling swells,
I kept trying to pause, align the bow,
but the river–
it follows its own command.
Because I’m tired of fearing death,
of reading narratives by the terminally ill
hoping to learn that when hope dies
the dying let go, only to find
tethered egos lapping the shore.
Because one night
I dreamed a poem.
I don’t recall the words
only their solace.
I was not the poet
didn’t know who was
didn’t care.
It propelled itself
line by line
unmoored
fearless
into the
unwritten.
Because I’ve been searching
for that poet-less poem
its ego-less reader
and that vessel
ever since.
Jane Schapiro is the author of three volumes of poetry and a nonfiction book. Her poems have appeared in numerous health-related journals including Ars-Medica, The Healing Muse,and JAMA.