Reconcile
your absence
with your impact.
Words are such fragile tokens.
Paper skin
that peels away in seasons.
Forage for nesting birds
and kindling fires.
We don’t even see
the impact crater’s edge
as the precipice
of some long-ago apocalypse.
Visit the bay shore,
or look down on the valley floor,
but we don’t acknowledge
the rock that made it.
Bring together who we are,
who we were,
who we will be.
Push time out of its line.
Enter into strange union
with things that go on
forever.
Never just a footnote.
Maybe a strain,
a sound,
or a flavor.
Something carried forward.
A light to bear.
An ember in the wind.
There is nothing for us,
but to make new,
and grow.
But we are stuck
in linear understanding
of ourselves.
We must reconcile
our futures
with our beginnings
and make something that lasts.
We tend to think
those places of the dead
are tombs,
but maybe we’ve been getting it
all wrong?
Could it be
that our consciousness
is technology,
and our lives
are just parts of a machine?
DJR – 2023
