How the sum of energy glides,
That, running through the fingers of man,
Like wishes of Gods, is in terminal span.
Sadly, they say, silken energy,
Loved by red blood and a sickly sun,
Runs toward its own return,
And winding down, is all undone.
Entropic moves are the moves of day,
And each of our rays are waves goodbye,
Particles of pithy decay.
And underneath the urgent stream,
Only the torpor and langorous dream,
The sad and welcome and bittersweet
End of the chapter and one way street,
A mise en scéne in glittering paint,
The silence that greets the desert saint
Going toward an empty glade,
In a merely black and tinctured shade,
Abode of the forgotten dead,
Finding on dust and vacant lots
The loves of the leaves and the dreams of the rocks.
And one by one the lights blink out,
Absent matter and energy's rout,
There is no chorus from night to night
But peace in the valley beyond the light.
Those of us who know this truth,
Look no further for our proof
Than the glad smile which always meets
The light overturned and the swelling deeps
We long at last to submerge within,
Though loving the land,
Yet longing to swim,
As a serpent sheds an irksome skin.
