Heat Death
Three o'clock
The city fog descends upon
The neighbourhood
Looking from the balcony
One cannot see down shrouded streets
Past two blocks.
No stars above in the endless black
The streetside trees stretch forth their boughs
To grasp and claw at nothingness
Nought to see except what lies below
The concrete track
There alone to see
Its every asphalt groove and mound
Thrown in stark relief
By lamplight that discovers
Neither the road ahead, nor the sky unbound
But shutters both, and draws the gaze down.
Amidst the fog, one cannot glimpse
The human faces of the neighbours
The man at his piano, the girl immersed in books
The child with its building bricks
Assembling worlds, starfish hands curled in determined fists
Isolate, disparate, forsaken, in schism
Within the abysm of the mist.
Between the heat and cold there is the fog
Human warmth spread increasing thin
A host of embers scattered to the wind
Losing heat without a core
Where was the hearth, cold grey ashes
Lifeless dust about the floor
Separation, slow dispersion
Of tiny points of light ever growing dim
Approaching the ultimate inertion
And weak against the encroaching chill of night to contend:
Entropic end.
Only the concrete can one see
Ten steps ahead perhaps, no more
Heads bowed down to trace the immediate path
In the aging walk paved by slow machines
To count the cracks, avoid the crevices
Never lift their sights to meet the solemn, lidless stare
Of an everpresent cloud of witnesses.
If I came with songs and poems of old to clear the haze
Would you hear the words I spoke to you?
And should you feed thereon with faith and thanksgiving?
No, my people, you should turn your face away
For what are the words of the poets and prophets?
Who can discern them? And who is willing?
Bound in chains of darkness, we eke out feeble lives
Tired roles we endlessly reprise
Drinking, laughing, never seeing face to face
Divided, we are swiftly conquered
And the voice that crieth in the wilderness
Is as utterly alone as all the rest.
But the Word of the Lord came to me in a roundabout way
And as I stand upon the stage
To call upon that ancient Muse
I see your faces unconfused
Behold the book which bound am I to impart
The scroll inscribed upon a consecrated heart
Comfort ye my people, saith your God
For between the cold and heat there is the fog.
The everpresent cloud of smoke, the mist
Which rises fragrant from the coals, thrice-blest
Eclipsing faces 'midst the gentle but unwavering effluence of light
Stand aright!
Our souls are spread increasing thin
A breath, a whisper upon the wind
The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work
By the Self-same wrought the renewal of the earth
Remember, O Man, that dust thou art
A dying ember upon the hearth
Separation, slow dispersion
A flickering light grows ever dim
Approaching the ultimate inertion
And weak to stand as night encroaches on the world's overflowing brim:
O Elohim, the end, the end
Wisdom! Let us attend.
