Every day I go up on the mountain   Climb to the top but I don't know what for   It's quiet until I hear a voice up on the mountain   Beware of what you want   It might want you more      ashes my burned hut   but beautiful like cherry    blooming on the hill      -one of my patients just before he died   And just before I left the hospital and began to travel   If he could face death so calmly   How could I face life with so much doubt   Now I can sit on the side of a mountain    And watch the shadows slowly filling the valley floor   But not without the doubts that still linger   And constantly caress the edges of my shadowy interior   At least a catheter expels impurities in a manner of model efficiency   And my previous profession always at least offered that   Flawless vasectomies in clean and well lit places   A sterile field sealed from infection but not from disease   I often wonder if I left anyone behind   But somehow I just can't remember   Only an oddly defined drive to find a better way   But somehow I don't believe this is it   As I watch the shadows slowly creeping closer   I think about India and the Hindu concept of Maya   It took me so long to understand   The space between reality and perception   And now it seems that I live there