All around me things are dying –

Decay dripping from every limb

As down down down they fall

In streaks of gold, red, orange, brown.

Always brown – all will turn to crisp,

Brittle, broken, brown. 

They are dead, you see.

And they aren’t coming back.

We can talk with knowing nods

Of resurrection and rebirth –

But these dearly beloved will not rise

Rise but will be replaced.

Is that not, for you and for me

Our greatest and growing terror?

We who believe in the resurrection

Are not reassured that we will 

Recognize the reincarnated self.

Is my descent for naught?

Will the slow movement that manifests

In the briefest flash of seasons – 

The quick crawl from bud to bloom,

From green to gold to brown – have

Any echoed features in the hereafter?

Or only as a mirror dimmed?

But if I stretch it in my minds eye –

This breath, this blink of time and space –

I can find in it an infinitude all its own. 

And in this rain of rainbowed hues,

Is there any difference between

A moment and eternity?