These Times / March 15,2011 Poem by William Waterway

rocking nine point oh on the Richter scale brings alarms
swollen thousands wash ashore with tides of empty arms
collapsing buildings and dreams symbolizing collapsing societies
shipwrecked by an ocean of swirling–swallowing–submerging tsunamis

how many suffering cries for help lost to void empty and care less
how many struggles not to drown – grabbing and gasping at void air less
how many lives taken by shifting land, swaying sea, falling debris
how many lives ruined by lost loved ones crushed or washed away by sea

survive! yes, survive! but why? is it our instinct? our hope? our wish?
like the bird that flies from danger, like the snake that slithers for cover
like the cockroach that flees from light into a hidden dark corner
like the deer that leaps through the forest from its two-legged hunter

in college, I remember reading a book that changed my life
author P. D. Ouspensky’s, “In Search of the Miraculous”
a philosophical rendering of timeless truisms about our hungry humanity
in the end, we are all food for something – bugs, birds, animals, infinity
everything feeds on something – everything is fuel for some other thing

like helium is food for the sun, like uranium is food consumed by fission
as unstable radioisotopes feed to become something new entirely
upon consumption - energy is created – energy that transforms our reality
as physics expresses in its empirical “law of conservation of energy” -
energy can only be transformed into some other form of energy - it can neither be created nor destroyed - it can only be transformed from one state to another

thus we have a glimpse into the infinity of our cycles of being
upon birth as an egg - we were 99.999999% empty space
empty space with a droplet of water that held the cosmic hologram of our Spirit
an infinite Spirit made manifest – so our earthly time may serve as –
food for thought

Sic transit gloria mundi