Things were so much easier back then,
before sunshine promised grief.
I did not know then that sun would eventually
force itself on the planet and engulf the matter
just as the memory of dad's cold dead hand
would encircle all other memories.
And there;
the water moving without strategy to surround the island.
Presently, the world is ending all the time
but we were never sure when it started.
Convince yourself:
it will be okay to be nothing one of these days,
that the universe has no ethics,
that is does not matter
whether we prevail
or whether we destroy ourselves.
Or maybe just deny the insects and their hunger,
with their faces upside down in guiltless pleasure.
I enjoy the fact of weight;
the mass of ants
teeming below us,
dwarfing us.
We are all very silent
compared to all of the movement around us.
We keep making noise about it,
our tongues moving around
inside our mouths.
And I keep learning
again and again
the reasons for the circle
I've drawn around myself.
The approximation of a life wound up
with emotion and meaning
like an orbiting body
surrounded by orbital bodies
that never touch one another.
