is what i do

If there is nothing at the end,
Then there is nothing to anticipate
And nothing to lose anticipating
Something in its stead. Paradise
Perhaps; some appropriate rebirth;
Hell if that’s your leaning. Something
To anticipate, informed by hope or fear,
Attractive as nothing can never be.

If there will be nothing then, then
There can be nothing now, nothing
That will not vanish, leaving
Me with nothing, nothing to be
for. Still, I will be good, and if
It turns out I am good for nothing,
Then nothing will be good enough.
But if anything emerges, as of course
all must, if anything will be,
Then it will be better to have been
Good, though nothing commanded that:
No paradise, no future birth, no hell.

Nothing demands goodness. If
I have nothing, then I have
Nothing to hate, but now may love
All with nothing. With anything, if
I have anything, I may then
Give some of that away to someone,
Anyone I love now, and lose
Nothing. And whatever
I keep or give, anything or not,
I must be honest about that,
Anticipating nothing, and be
Grateful for that. Love, gifts,
Truth and gratitude, all
And nothing. All that is good.

Our time is bloated, complex,
And despite its urgent claims
To be changing every moment,
It changes slowly.

If youth,
Eye caught by some small trick
Of light or timing, were to
Notice, exposed as it were
By chance, some small eruption
From the fixed and cluttered past,
Some name, verse of some poem,
Appearing, at this moment, from
This place, to have the steady gleam
Of truth, and if youth were to
Focus: immerse mind and energy
On all the substance that gleam
Reveals, followed to its source;
Study years, ignoring as past
All meaning,
All urgency,
Every imposition
Of currency upon eternal revelation,
And if then youth were to emerge,
As it were, again in our quick
Time, our time may still,
Will still, be here, as youth
Will be old some time still
And some time soon
No change encounter.

Tall, the city is
tall and low down it grinds,
the city grinds one against
the next striking spark
against rail, shifting gears,

each turning, turns the next
widdershins, spinning now
this way, now
that way never looking up,

up. There, they say
the towers sway,
down they spin to power
the tall city’s story
hour after hour after hour.

Every thing is
(God is, I am),
On the border, that sphere
Infinitely distant from
The center defining
It, porous, indistinct:
Not I, I, dust;
Lightning
Flash, God, comforting notion.

That, this, another,
Becoming as it is,
Soft where it meets
Embracing other, there
Is no harm there,
Nothing really,
there.

And where does that
Leave us then, leave every thing
Here, and how
Does any thing,
Does God, do I return
To where
We were, where
Every thing is, was -
How is it that
Every thing returns to
Will be
At the center

Again?

Out there relentless
Time drives all becoming,
Hastening.

Meanwhile we here
And now hold our selves to be,
Still.