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.