Never mind the ones who live as though this world
is a throwaway place, terminal, terminus,
the blood-washed stage upon which battles of
foretold conclusion must evermore be fought.
Never mind. You are not one of them.
That is why I like you.
I like that you see a world that is not tableau,
not a set created on the back lot by some
skygod cineasté with a penchant for disembowelment,
not a killing floor, not an abattoir,
not a terrible failure of imagination.
That instead you see a world that defies human logic,
that resists dominion and outsmarts our analysis
as though it were a thing alive,imagine!
a thing that could love and be loved,
and I like that you are willing to believe
the world is just such a thing, not exactly,
but inexactly, for it is the world, and it contains multitudes,
its powerful play an interplay of every atom,
every molecule, every wave of sound and light,
all that is alive and all that holds itself
aloft in the frolic of cosmic dust.
I tell you this because I see your sadness and I know
your despair when things go dark and you are encircled
by the surround sound of drums and the floor
beneath your feet is slick from too many dress rehearsals.
I tell you this so you will remember even in your darkness
that you are born of that frolicking sparkle-laden dust,
you are those atoms, you are those molecules,
you are carried on those waves of sound
and on those waves of light, and if ever
there was a world that needed you to remember,
and if ever there was a world that loved you back,
this is it. This is that world.