Simplify {a poem}

We say it like it's simple. 
And then: Strip away markers 
of identity. Face the space they filled. 

Visibility became a drug, never enough, 
a boulder, ever heavier, heaving 
against an unrelenting algorithm. 

​Were you special because you posted 
a steady stream of encouragement, 
beauty, mindful moments, insights?

Here you are, on the other side 
of the crevasse you feared crossing,
another clearing. What have you found? 

Nothing missing. Nothing missed. 
Only the wish to tell the world: 
I love you still and all the more, 

from here, in a room, on a road, 
surrounded by trees or buildings
or bodies or song. 

​You there, who saw me only through 
a screen, go outside now if you can. 
Look at the sky. 

Is it starry or light-polluted? 
Cloudy or blue? 
Near or far? 

Imagine me standing next to you. 
Does a day go by when death
doesn't brush past?

Always on our way somewhere, 
like the train whistle we hear 
every few hours, a metronome. 

Passengers, all of us. 
Are you looking out the window 
as life rushes by? 

Someday is so close, 
and always just beyond. 
Keep reaching. Don't wait for it. 

Steady yourself. 
Everything you don't need 
is nearly everything. 

I remain greedy for what's left. 
The way your hand grazes my face. 
The way coffee tastes in the morning. 

The way music can course through me 
and tears come, unbidden, at the last scene 
before the credits roll. 

Not even the poets can see.
But they tell us where to look – a field,
a memory, a fallen tower, a bedside, a birth. 

Very little is up to us. But the mattering? 
Nothing you do or don't do will affect its value.
There is no market for the soul.