Let’s close The Atlas of the Universe for an hour
Let’s leave your book open on that table for an hour,
Let’s come out of this library of intelligence for an hour,
And let’s forget about the human collection of knowledge for an hour.
Let’s come, come and sit before me and let me tell you,
Why the sun rises,
Why the morning starts,
Why the baby birds begin to sing in their nest,
And why the mother bird is woken,
And why, when she sees the new day, says the universe is meaningful,
And why she goes out of her nest,
And why she brings her babies warm worms for breakfast,
And why she goes out again to explore existence,
And why, when she returns at sunset and sees her babies are all right, she feels the universe is hers,
And why the baby birds tell her that they again saw the jungle cat down the tree,
And why the mother bird is so frightened,
And why she hides her fear,
And why she hugs them,
And why she tells them that the jungle cat will never be able to surprise them,
And why the three babies believe in her,
And why the little bird makes them believe that there are other days of existence to come.

And if tomorrow the sun rises,
and if tomorrow the morning starts,
Come and sit before me again,
Come with your doubts this time,
Come with your questions this time,
Come with your knowledge this time,
Come with your book of mathematics this time,
Come with all that you know about existence this time,

But come to the temple they’ve built for their gods this time
And come to the shrine where they’ve buried the ashes of their grandfathers.

Come and sit before me and let me tell you,
How a little bird has guaranteed this day of existence,
How has she guaranteed that today,
The sun rises,
And the morning starts,
So that her babies begin to sing in their nest,
So that she wakes up,
So that she sees the new day,
So that she says the universe is meaningful,
So that she goes out of her nest,
So that she brings her babies warm worms for breakfast,
So that she goes out again to explore existence,
So that, when she returns at sunset and sees her babies are all right, she feels the universe is hers,
So that her babies tell her that they again saw the jungle cat down the tree,
So that she fears,
So that she hides her fear,
So that she hugs them,
And so that the whole universe becomes meaningful at the end of the day.