Witness but Don’t Testify

To be a permanent witness,
That would be the thing, to out-wait
All the undecided tumult
Of today’s civilization

For the undecided tumult
Of whatever follows the end—
Even better, to hang around
Evolutionary ages

To see what follows extinctions,
All the undecided tumult
Of kinds of life you can’t guess yet—
To watch the change without changing

Without dissolving into it—
Godlike and highly entertained.
But it’s projection isn’t it?
The churn of civilizations

Is something you know from the past,
And the same for great extinctions.
If you earned immortality,
It would serve you right to be bored

By a billion years of same old,
Same old, or a billion or more
Of something so utterly new
You’re left permanently confused.

Well, and then you’re immortal now
Or might as well be, sitting here,
Watching the clouds, reading more news,
Alternately bored and confused.