Knowing

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Knowing

I am stone

I do not know this

For I have no brain, no mind, no consciousness

You use your imagination and your knowledge

in an act of empathy

You imagine yourself as me

who cannot imagine for myself

For I have no brain, no mind, no consciousness

I am bird

I do not know this

For I have no language to name types and categories

I soar, I fly, I feed, I die

but have no words to speak of it

Am I conscious of my soaring, my flying, my feeding, my dying?

I do not know

and have no words with which to tell

But you can imagine yourself as me

soaring, flying, feeding, dying

No, not dying

Of death you have experience, but not of dying

And I have no words to tell of what I feel and know

I am Ian

I do know this

for people tell me so

‘Ian this...’, ‘Ian that...’, they say

so yes, I must be Ian

I do have words

in which to think and speak and listen

I can formulate, I can communicate

I can imagine, I can create

I can describe stone, I can categorise bird

I can create a building, form a statue

make a likeness of a bird, imagined soaring, flying, feeding,dying

But I cannot imagine the dying

for of death I have experience but not of dying

I am God

I am what I am

You cannot know what I am like

I have no brain

Do I have consciousness? Do I have mind?

You cannot know what it is like to be me

unless I let you know

and mostly I keep you guessing

Ian I Gracey

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