Change the Brute

Andromeda is coming,
And the Earth is slowing down.
Humans will be gone before

Those measurements can catch you.
Se non è ben trovato,
È vero. But who wants truth,

Unless it’s a good story?
Although occasionally
Terrifyingly abrupt,

Change is mostly gradual
And more terrifyingly
Relentless. Fortune’s wheel grinds

Fine in that it grinds all down
To the smallest possible
Grains of difference, taking

Care to discover patterns,
However elaborate,
The better to reduce each

Wholly, perfectly, to dust.
The armies of U.S. Grant
Or Russians in the Donbas

Advance inch by inch by this
Barbaric principle: days
And nights are armies as well,

Moving through force of numbers,
Not by brilliant strategy,
To seize what they must consume.

If they don’t accomplish much,
They will still devour it all.
Brutes must strive to imitate

The thoroughness of the world,
To shove on at time’s own pace,
So all patterns found are lost.