I'm sorry that it's true that,
one day, you will no longer be able
to ask your mother what kind of plants
would work best in the corner of your room.
Your dad will no longer be there to converse
on the folly of trusting your brain and the elaborate
audio-visual display that it conjures at will.
I'm also sorry that it's true that,
one day, your dog will start taking slower and slower walks
until, in a white-washed room awash in fluorescent light,
they lie down for one last good nap.
And also, the racoon you once saw is probably also dead and,
in general, the entire biomass that is the track record of your existence
your traipse through this world, is more already-dead than not.
However! I am also ecstatic to report that,
for so long that it might as well be
forever,
rains will fall on the ocean shore
and winds will blow down that street you know
populated as it might be by people or by fierce, unstoppable vines.
And also,
even when the sun's nuclear engine stills and
comets are all that plays in her steady, mathematical, assured orbits,
you will have existed
and ceased
and that's something beautiful
to have been present but also
to one day be absent
to have learned to live and then,
maybe, hopefully, before it came,
to have learned to die.
So, it's true that all things shall pass but
that also means that the fist
will one day unclench and
that all itches shall be scratched
and yes, all poems lost, and language itself turn to dust
and bright, impossible lights be struck down like a swarm of bugs
but also that
pain will cease and
all crying ends
and