I Am that I Am

Better a deceiving god than no god at all.
This is experience in a certain mind
—not any mind—but one specific mind
with a particular history like yours
or mine, but other than yours and mine
—distinct, utterly unknown to both of us,
entirely other, and yet of the same kind
as your mind, or my mind, or any other.

Here we meet who are otherwise nothing
to one another, neither brother nor friend.…
Our minds wander off.—Look! This piece of wax
has not yet lost all taste of its honey.
It retains some odor of the wild flowers
from which it has been gathered by the bee.
It is hard. It is cold. It emits a sound
when stricken. It may be any shape.

But it remains still the same piece of wax
No one denies that. And I perceive it.
It is not accidental to the mind
to be united to the body. Yet how
prone to errors my mind is. If I had
not now looked out the window and seen
a human being going by in the street,
I would not believe it emits a sound

when stricken. Yet I am. I exist. I have
a body which can act and also suffer.
As your highness is so clear-seeing, there
is no concealing anything from you.
—You are not one of those who never philosophize.
The piece of wax is moved toward the fire.
But the piece of wax remains, because
this wax is not perceived except by mind.

But my essence consists wholly in being
a thinking thing. Right now, in bed with Helene,
the natural light of reason makes known
to me what is to be known. So I say
“Helene! You are a pure spirit. You represent
truths such that they bear their evidence
on their face. As for me, I visit the butcher
to watch the slaughtering of cattle. There

I dissect the heads of the animals
to learn what imagination consists of.”
—Francine lies beside me in her box. But
whether she sleeps or wakes I don’t know.
“Francine! Here are my dreams. Pay attention,
Francine/machine. The world is light, light-rays.
Love is a theory of light which intends light.”
I know what I am for. But do I exist? 

Although nothing imagined is true,
the power of imagining is real.
Certainly I seem to see. I seem 
to hear. I seem to be warmed. To imagine 
is nothing other than to contemplate
the image of a corporeal thing.
That is what you must assure me of. What
you are for. But you do not assure me.