The Universe Observing Itself
I'd like to say I'm a secular being,
that my ends are my own, not scripted.
And when I found out my father
became a religious man
not through the church but through the atoms of the land.
Through the best reason he could muster
with the end looming ever so
I'd imagine he looks up from time to time
and wants to thank the stars and sky that kept him safe his whole life.
With the fortune we received, a bounty not from God, or god, but greed?
While it's kept in the family with a reluctant clean conscious,
we look up and thank someone, and pretend it was an accident.
I look up and thank someone, pretending I don't.
I can conjure a friend, like a lonely child would,
and rest all my concerns on his back.
I say, "I love you, thank you, you have given me everything."
I look down and close my eyes and I put my hands together.
I'm motionless, and thoughtless, and convinced.
Everything is okay, and I'll live free another day.
Amen.
