It is wisdom to know we won’t survive.
So honor death. Rejoice to be alive.
This suffering earth, our home, will die soon.
Look. The changing face of the slivered moon;
The light reflected there is from the sun,
The father of all we see, and the one
Who dances with the moon and creates earth.
The moon’s the mother of our life, from birth
Comes everything, and everything will die.
I leave to someone with a wiser eye
If earth now dying has a chance to live
Again, but what I can see does not give
Me hope that there is anything ahead
But thrashing sea, bleeding land, the moon red
As blood in blotted sky. The wind will rage,
And people die, then cities, then an age.
SON:
I listen, Father. What is there to do?
The teeming game we eat is now so few
That rats and dogs are roasted in our pits;
Not hunts to brag about, the hunter sits,
Waits for the carcass to cook, worms to die,
And looks no other hunter in the eye.
No heroes are among us, just the quick
Who forage secret hiding places, stick
Holes to scare out mice, net birds on the wing,
Find bait and food in any foul thing,
And make traps out of what’s on the ground
To catch fish or lean cats that roam around.
When bitch’s call to pups we find bared fangs,
Outraged eyes. Her once-loved masters, in gangs,
Who once fed her, now spear her, club her young,
Kill them who once were allies. Who among
The once proud hunter wants to live this way?
FATHER:
The spirit doesn’t die, although the day
Once clear and bright, is now a deathly gray;
The end's not told, there may be more to say.
You are too young to know that birth and death
Are just the mist that clouds out of your breath
In mornings in the cold air from the north.
We can’t know what’s willed. The spirit brings forth
All things including death, death with sharp eyes,
Who waits and hides to catch you by surprise.
SON:
I once rejoiced in spirits of the sky
But I am young, and you are old, so I
Must say the world we live in is so bad
That just to quit it now would make me glad.
FATHER:
You've never been in love, for if you were
You'd never lose the chance to be with her.
