Life
We are wisps in this cosmos,
The flimsy bubbles,
The clumsy issues'
In this decay, this cosmic swamp.
We are the degassing
Of a dying celestial being's bowels,
The place where is-life churns and seethes,
The place where was-life nourishes the breeds,
The place from which is-life hangs by a volatile thread,
A thread whose cutting sends is-life back
Where was-life is dead,
Back to the darkness,
The ooze whose
Offspring are the very heirs,
The legacy and legions of was-life
When was-life and is-life was but life
And now,
Our lives bare-stir ancient Time,
That flame which consumes us and our now,
So that our glories that differ are alike brief;
So that our words, our words
Even when many,
Fill empty air, empty air
More often than ears;
And, when ears hear words ours—
Only the basest parts do they
Convey,
And in those unintentioned parts, those undesired and unmentioned parts
They inflame,
They bite the sane—
And ignite the insane,
Words evoking passions—sweet or bitter—
In gods whose wrought art—or wroth acts
Make a gardens and ghosts of the world.
And we, we that are is-life,
We care, it seems for none of that,
But, rather,
That the word was spoken
Thinking that the world will long remember
That we were here.
Ignorant that one day we shall return
To that incorporeal state of was-life
And all that will remain
Is our effect
Upon a future generation, a future world
Yet to issue forth
From the ooze.
Copyright © James Fitz-Gerald | Year Posted 2018
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