You Can’t Survive Everything

Until you’re nothing at all,
However, you’re surviving
Like any electric light

With a switch, a filament
Burning in a fragile bulb,
On and off and on again,

Reliably waking up
When summoned, without burning
Out, long enough to forget

Someday that analogy
To incandescence won’t work.
The technology will change,

Be forgotten or replaced,
As so won’t you and these lines,
But my, don’t you glow tonight,

Especially now the world
Is so dark outside, moonless
Hours for which your lamp is bright.