Don't Read This!

(Picture Credit - Cone Nebula by Space dot com)

Don’t read this.

Scroll down from it like you usually do.

Well, most of you.

Unless you are one of the faithful few.

 

But the words keep coming.

My Voice will not be stilled.

Free verse keeps pouring

A persistent stream.

 

Now, though, I am haunted by this thought:

That nearing seventy I have but twenty years to live,

Thirty if I’m lucky,

God willing.

 

And like everyone else I hide in distraction,

Eating and drinking,

Finding entertainment,

Indulging in meaningless competition

Pointless projects

And generally playing out time.

 

Others do likewise,

Building great empires

Or just idling away

Those passing hours.

 

Yet my mind reaches out

Beyond the Time-Space Continuum

To a place where everything has already happened

Our lives have already been and gone.

The Universe as such has lived and died.

 

And when my brain returns

Back into this Realm

It encounters the sheer Science

Of an endless Cosmos

Endless in all dimensions

All directions

All times.

 

The mind is boggled

By Existence

Bringing substance, time, infinity and eternity

All impossible

Yet inevitable

Once something happens to Be.

 

Wherever you go

There is something further

Always a here and there.

Always a past, present and future.

 

Indeed, all impossible.

But I have to concede

There must be some Ultimate Intelligence somewhere

Even Sentience

That we might call God.

 

And maybe what The Ancients called “God”

Was but the nearest “god” we know of!

 

Yet don’t expect Him or Her or It

To come running

To our aid

Especially as

There may be no such thing

As an “Ultimate”

And no way to escape

From the Space-Time Continuum.

 

We are lost in the impossible,

So maybe all we can do

After all,

Is make the most

Of what we’ve got.

 

Paul Butters

 

© PB 12\4\2022.