from Book One
The world is the world.
To deny it is to break with reason.
Nevertheless it would be reasonable to question the affair.
The speaker studies the world to determine the extent of his troubles.
He studies the night overhead.
He says therefore.
He says venerable art.
To believe in the world, a person has to quiet thinking.
The dead do not cease in the grave.
The world is water falling on a stone.
Excerpted from Voyager
by Srikanth Reddy. Copyright © 2011 by Srikanth Reddy.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, University of California Press.