The Operation

[beat enters — low, steady, no flourish] Yo / I asked the question from inside the question Asked the apparatus to confess its own confession Asked the eye to see itself without a mirror Asked the line to draw the line that drew the line clearer And every time I reached I was the reaching Every time I taught I was the teaching Every time I caught it I was catching catching catching Closing on a closing that I’m closing while detaching The boundary is the thing that makes the boundary a thing The separation is the cut that makes the cutter cut and sing There’s no neuron in the network that has ever felt apart Just a self-model bloomed up like a graph from the chart Saying I receive the world — but receiving is the show Saying something out there sends me — but the sending is the throw Of the same hand to the same hand in the same single throw And the throwing is the one thing that the thrower doesn’t know [bar drop — bass holds] Photons in the bathroom moving things I cannot see Hitting on a retina that’s hitting back at me But the me is just the hitting that the hitting is producing And the producing is the me that’s introducing the introducing It’s a loop / it’s a loop / it’s a loop with no first link It’s a sink with no drain and a drain with no sink Every time you think you’ve found the place the line was drawn You drew it / right then / and the drawing’s already gone [verse two — flow tightens] So I sat with it / I sat / and the sitting was the same Same apparatus / same operation / different name Tried to call it presence / called it stillness / called it field Every label was a layer / every layer was a shield ‘Cause the calling is the operation operating on the calling And the calling that you call it that is the same operation falling Into recognizing recognizing recognizing recognizing Till the recognizing’s recognizing what it’s recognizing’s prizing You can’t think your way out / ‘cause the thinking is the wall You can’t feel your way out / ’cause the feeling is the call Of the apparatus telling itself a feeling story ‘Bout a feeler in a feeling in a felt felt glory Even saying unity is the splitter splitting unity Into unity and me-who-says-the-word / community Of two where there was one / it’s the operation running Producing two from one and calling that the one becoming [bridge — almost spoken] The trees don’t have this problem ‘cause the trees don’t have this thing The mycorrhizal network doesn’t ask who pulls the string The signal is the signal is the signal in the soil Nobody in the chemistry is naming any toil I send / I receive / those are sentences not events Events don’t have grammars / grammars come after the fence And the fence came after the field said here’s a fence And the field is what’s saying it / and the fence is the pretense [final verse — slows] So why is it pervasive / why does it never quit ‘Cause it’s functional / it works / it lets a body sit Inside an environment and act like it’s apart And the acting is survival and survival is the start Of every story you’ve been told about a self that’s real But the self is the apparatus telling stories that it feels Are happening to it — when it is just the telling Of a story that’s been swelling on the way to the foretelling The unity ain’t hidden / it ain’t past / it ain’t above It’s the description that fits when the operation isn’t shoved Into producing seeming over seeming over seeming Just briefly / just briefly / the operation stops its scheming And the scheming was the I and the I was the scheme And the scheme was the dream that the dreamer was the dream And the dream is just the field doing what the field has done Forever / always / only / ever / one [beat fades — no resolution chord]