When the water that makes
up most of me flows out of that
great mouth, across the ultimate delta
and merges into that omniform sea,
I will still have the identity, the
significance to this holistic system
and its parts I currently seem to enjoy.
I will not miss my friends and enemies;
they will breathe, and bathe in, me,
as I and my suspension labor after the moon.
When this omniform sea effervesces,
is flash-boiled away in the shockwave
of ol' Sol gone supernova, all the matter
will be transformed, dispersed, suspended
like drops of river water in the sea, like
flavor in tea, infusing the galaxy,
and I shall enjoy, still,
all my current importance.
And when, eventually, all collapses
into one, and that all one pauses
to reflect, well, then, bang-zoom
all too soon right back to sun,
earth and moon and finally again,
these shreds of sentience, strung
together of the gross elements,
slouching out of the surf, and
doing it all over from the top: Even then
I will not have learned a damn thing, but
will still enjoy my current significance.