Though Young in This Work I Have Seen a Few Trends

Wrote the palliative care
Hospice physician. Why read
Any further to find out

What those trends might be? Why not
Contemplate how young all are
As organisms, as words,

As one species on this Earth
Of a few billion turns now
Around a medium star?

We’ll stop at the universe.
If you wish, the multiverse
We’ll leave all yours to explore.

Though young in this poetry
Business, this verse is aware
Of a few trends. Poems repeat

The topics other poems tried.
Poets imitate the poems
Those poets liked. Languages,

Religions, and upheavals
Such as colonization
Or the collapse of kingdoms

Start, shape, or reshape great, long
Traditions. Then they’re erased,
Banned or burned by accident.

Leaves, pollen, seeds—things shed things.
Other things store and eat them.
Other things grow out of them.

Dying’s written into them.
Though young in this work, this verse
Has started to notice trends.