You don’t need to climb too high

To notice how small you are

Eight or nine feet will do

You don’t need to sink too low

To notice how tall you’ve been

Someone in the middle might say this

Half involved in their own life

Watching themselves play out brevity

And its skirmishes with meaning.

Many metaphors meant many people,

Or fractions of people

Saw each other’s moons askew

Their errors writ large, writ law

Lunatics come no more from the heavens

Than they do from the dirt