That Old One About the Tree

You know that old one about
the tree, the forest, with nobody around
and how it falls and maybe it makes a sound,
and maybe it doesn’t.  The big thing about that one
isn’t whether there was a sound or if there wasn’t—
you get rid of that question, and the part that haunts
remains.  It is still there in the happening,
the clear crashing there, how it encompasses everyone
condemned to missing it by being out of the
immediate vicinity.  Out of it the way
you’re out of all vicinities but one, all the time,
how you’re missing just about everything falling
and all the sounds they may or not be making.
Till presently you’ve gone out of all vicinities to stay.