maybe the ones who have left

us early by the malice of their own

hand knew what matters most:

procreation; the evolution of

planetary life amply illuminated, steeled

to survive in our natal fount or

with mastery of the universe poised

at the precipice of infinitude.

the greatest of these is escape

abandonment of the world one

has been born to

and from.

because: carbon

because: avarice

because: religion

because: atheism

because: swarm behavior

because: there is no heaven

because: practice makes perfect

because: preppers will kill you

because: one good turn deserves another

because: dust to dust

because: white sky

because: mystery

because: tribes

because: 8 billion humans

because: 5 billion years

because: smokey the bear

because: ember orange horizon

because: super volcano

because: chicxulub

because: science

because: orbital decay

because: copernicus-gallilei-keppler-newton

because: rutherford-bohr-einstein

because: fermi-oppenheimer-hawking

because: "war is hell"

because: "mars needs women"

because: reality trumps fantasy

because: euphoria is temporary

because: mortality is enough

because: i'm writing a poem that no one will read

because: i'm writing an ur-poem

because: poetry has never existed

because I'm writing a poem.

©2015 by Michael Jones

Originally published at jonesbook.blogspot.com on September 7, 2015.