Dawns on You

What you can’t prevent both soothes
And alarms you,

The gradual changing of daylight, gradual
Changes to your bones and skin.

You have a sorting system you pay a little
Attention to, not much.

You winkle away at the things you think
You can, if you work hard, move,

Never much considering what a gnawing
Little rodent you are, all of you.

All of you gnawing and breeding at once,
Depleting harvests, shifting barns,

Driving other hungry things to extinction,
But not you, lonesome you.

On your own, you sense a whole to things,
A wheeling night that sorts

Into the bin of your system that you can’t
Chew, can’t deplete, can’t move.

Still, it moves. Even the changing light
Never goes on precisely

As that light, given even day and night
Were never immutable, given,

Only aspects of an iron core spinning
As it has, so far, as it does.

Your sorting system has a problem; to sort
Is to feel it was you, you who chose.

Nothing is inevitable; nothing
Much comes close.