I am

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I am

By Patricia Morris

I am made of rich black soil that grows corn and soybeans and wheat and oats and vegetable gardens.

I am made of love showered upon me by parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles.

I am made of tallgrass prairies and mighty rivers.

I am made of grief and loss.

I am made of Midwestern college campuses, of thick gray and dark green law books.

I am made of courtrooms and jails, prisons and government office buildings.

I am made of curiosity and wanderlust, of courage and manners.

I am made of blood and bone, atoms and molecules, hair and cartilage.

I am made of brain synapses and aching joints, smiling eyes and laughing mouth.

I am made of love.

Who is this “I” I am describing? I learn in Zen that there is no “I.” “I” am a figment of “my” imagination. I am nothing without everything.

I am nothing without everything

I am nothing without

I am nothing

I am

I

Patricia Morris lives in Northern California and writes on Monday nights at Jumpstart Writing Workshops. She loves road trips, the Grateful Dead, and reading Dogen.

Her writing has appeared in Rand McNally’s Vacation America, the Ultimate Road Atlas and The Write Spot anthologies:  “Possibilities” and “Musings and Ravings From a Pandemic Year,” edited by Marlene Cullen.