What Disappears

A meditation on nothing, and everything

The universe expands without a care
for what we build or burn along the way.
No cosmic ledger tallies our despair,
no final judge awaits to have his say.
The stars will swallow everything we’ve known,
each monument, each manuscript, each name,
and entropy will claim what love has grown
as surely as it snuffs the candle’s flame.

But then a laugh breaks loose. The morning light
falls on your hands exactly as it should.
A stranger holds a door. You read. You write.
You find a word for something deeply good.

If nothing matters, then the slate is clear...
unless what ends is not what disappears.

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