In my youth, all material things
were charged with that self-sustaining light,
that mighty Word from which all things proceed.
Each dried up stick and blade of grass would sing
the ancient song those potentates
that rule the western coast still sing to me sometimes.

But as the old king said, all things must pass
from us like dust until they are remade
with glory undiminishing.
The objects of my youth are dessicated, faded
like a sun dipped in the sea.
That slow and tepid ball of gas
must surely dissipate when met with substance.

Every thing is, in it’s essence,
singular and irreducible.
When time and chance have passed like flesh
from bone and hope has left mere man in sin,
then will the empty chatter of this earth
be blasted by the flame of the eternal God,
and, purged of dross and filth, what will emerge:
a golden orb, a shattering note;
the diamond eye of bare eternity.