Returning

To return to the essence of what I was

Before I was: a mystery.

Will knowing who or what I was

Before I was be clear to me?

To speculate on lofty dreams:

Wistful efforts to fantasize

Something that’s unheard by formless

Ears or seen by formless eyes.

Disintegration of ruins show

The odd conception of what became

A vainglorious attempt to have

A monument outlast its name.

Will the name be muffled by

The echoes of a limitless void

When all semblance to what we think

Is real is once and for all destroyed?

Even though impermanence

Governs what we think and feel,

Maybe a deep understanding

Reveals something pure and real--

As real as any bubble that bursts

Or lightning flash from sky to earth.

Must being be purely palpable,

Or does it somehow transcend our birth?

Speculation gives the seeker

Hope--a blissful sanguinity--

While past, present, and future constantly

Merge into infinity?

-by Bob B (7-28-18)