When my thumb touches my little finger
a door opens that I forgot was there
a door of air forgotten in the air
the thumb knows that door through which I came
but what the thumb knows is before knowledge
it does not listen with its map of hearing
it hears the harmony the fingers play
I cannot go back through that door again
and the thumb will not guide me anywhere
pointing the way home for the thumb is there
–W. S. Merwin, from his book “The Moon Before Morning”