I was born down the street from a slag pit
The Earth’s heart wretched from its bosom.
Coal dust everywhere, filling the lungs
Greying white sheets hanging on clothes lines
Coal black tears seep from stinging eyes.
Then I moved forward like everyone does
Tallying years and calling them the past.
A ridiculously short past, a tiny point
Not really much to the Universe
Ageless as it truly is. Insignificant.
And rather meaningless if given any thought
Meaningless Past becomes meaningless present
Unless you give them more than yourself.
If Plato scrambles out of that darkness
Followed by a hoard of his fellows
Then what you know is nothing and yet everything.
It’s all about the right questions.
Coal dust and meaningless past
Looking to the future in what seems
A meaningless present yet infused
With the choking, dusty past
Begets meaning in that moment
When all fuse into timelessness.
All of history, all of the vast expanse
Make that otherwise insignificant life
A Singularity of time and space.