by Neil Hawkes
If I perceive
A billion suns
Spilling their last fires
To the black-hole's maw that is never filled
An end even to darkness
I am calm
If I imagine
A thousand empires standing in the dust
Reaching and crumbling in their turn
I am not perturbed
Everything that begins
Must end
Yet to consider
A mere six feet of dark
Embraced by the natural earth
That small night
So daunts me
I am undone
How to hope again
After that consideration?
How to feel the sun beyond that night?
How to abandon self for life?
Listening through long silence for the song of another?
Dying first so I may live before I die?
Through small deaths
To gain an answer
As a child
Learning lessons
For a greater
Examination?
As a fledgeling from the nest, leaping from Eden?
Born again falling
Falling and landing and rising
Beginning and ending and beginning
Lovely day
For a plummet!
