My ambitions are like little paper boats
set out on a lake to moisten, wobble, and sink.
My floating armada of self-images, great and small,
will gradually go down with them just the same.
Strange creatures are moving through the deep hollows
far below the ground which nobody yet can name, though
they know us by the dust from our corpses sifting down
through layers of earth like some incessant rain.
We’ve been blessed with more than we ever could use,
but like a brood of ungrateful siblings, we can’t stop
squabbling amongst ourselves over who will get
to claim the choicest bits of flashing light.
Everyone wants to acquire a human body,
but as soon as we do, we can’t stop ourselves
from complaining about our eyes, our nose, or how
fat we are, or how poor, and then we commence to fight.
If we lived those dim subterranean lives, far darker
than we could think, we would probably dream
of the surface light, and cool lakes with boats
that sail all day, and never ever sink.
Feeling To Infinity 