They Don’t Come Back

We would prefer consolation
Not predicated on wishing

Things were not as they seem to be.
Einstein tried the consolation

Of all things always existing
In some part of the equation,

And many a parent has tried
To believe or convey belief

In someone’s version of heaven
When leaving or losing children.

Who can blame them? Who’s never lost?
Who doesn’t seek meaningful things?

If there were true consolation
Without needing any meaning,

What would that be like? What could it
Be? The easiest thing to learn,

Since you can’t ever avoid it,
Is that the gone do not come back.

To perish is to accomplish
Something inevitable but

Still amazing, miraculous
Almost, in a cosmos that seems

To preserve all information—
Every jot of energy stays,

The waves of pointillist quanta
All dance on their merry ways, but

You who were here are now never
And nothing. One fact’s forever,

But an eternity stretching
Only in the lost direction

Hardly counts as consolation,
Except for knowing you’re going.