Pity Song

Pity the dwindling people--all those delicate minds and bodies

fading to night.

And pity the stars, the pinpoint stars, those hungry constellations

crumbling to light.


The past sits in the sky. On the not-yet vanished phantoms

of worlds unknown

have pity, and on the phantoms of worlds just coming to being,

soon to be gone.


The art of melting--dissolving purely--is the art of wisdom--

how to come, and to go

through whatever shapes the eye of the world assigns you,

shifting to and fro


with a fine, solicitous joy, a compassionate sorrow

for each passing thing

you are, or were, and the shapes of all those creatures

you've never been.


But pity much more that untaught heart that crouches

in itself , like a stone,

hugging its own body--apart from all other bodies--

frightened, alone.


Copyright 2010-2012 Paul Petrie