As Ever

Watching the water rush, but
Thinking of people tugging
Each other, as if playing

Both roles by turn—today, you
Be gravity; I’ll be stream.
Clinging surface tensions win

Concessions in shapes of waves,
But gravity, gravity,
Weak as it is, is always

Cumulative. Today, you
Be the ever-growing past,
I’ll be resistance to change.

People are like that. The fans
Of growing past think themselves
As progressing to future;

The most desperate lovers
Clinging what they know best
Imagine they serve the past.

The past is a monster, dear.
Like gravity, it seems weak,
But only accumulates.

So much talk of entropy,
Like it’s the only iron
Law in town. And gravity?

And the unrelenting growth
Of the self-editing past
Always adding, but somehow

Always managing to seem
As pleroma as ever?
Just watching the water rush.