I do not need to see the mosquito to know that one bite can change the world. I do not need to feel the shoreline to know that I could drown.

The truth as it presents itself is open and confused, too generous to focus on usefulness. You’ll have to sift and sift. You’ll have to grind a few seeds and cook something up before you consume it. In time you will discover that there is no sediment. Truth floats. It is not always useful.

Bound by early successes, you may fail to cope with later failures. Try something impossible.

But you too may be similar to the Rove Beetle, short, truncate, and oval in some way you do not yet understand. If only you were in southern Arizona, southern Nevada, or southern California, tan to brown and lurking in streams. If only you could appreciate filamentous algae growing on rocks and idealized shallow water.

My estate is small and vulnerable to intrusion. Thank you for violating my retreat. Now I can trust that you will not tolerate my foolishness. The soft bouncing persistence of bees, the older trees growing deaf just as their leaves try to tell you about moisture and gravity . . . It’s okay if you don’t want to listen to me, but others have more to say that isn’t even ordinary.

The moon is sleeping upon the water now. Maybe you won’t have to do anything but let tomorrow forget you again. That would be nice if you too can forget about it.

But perhaps your thinking was born among the potatoes. Maybe you saw too much and tried to start something with each secret eye. It’s a place parents give you to start, but you might have to learn to crawl all over before you can blossom and extend your wimpy feet. If you think you’ve only got two, you’ll never make it, but don’t worry. Death will arrive in time.

I really didn’t know what to do with these feelings, so I hid what was left of them beneath this sentence, which went on to suggest I knew what I was talking about just to give you a laugh and loosen your grip on the borrowed body that holds you.