To return to the essence of what I was
Before I was: a mystery.
Will knowing who or what I was
Before I was be clear to me?

To speculate on lofty dreams:
Wistful efforts to fantasize
Something that’s unheard by formless
Ears or seen by formless eyes.

Disintegration of ruins show
The odd conception of what became
A vainglorious attempt to have
A monument outlast its name.

Will the name be muffled by
The echoes of a limitless void
When all semblance to what we think
Is real is once and for all destroyed?

Even though impermanence
Governs what we think and feel,
Maybe a deep understanding
Reveals something pure and real--

As real as any bubble that bursts
Or lightning flash from sky to earth.
Must being be purely palpable,
Or does it somehow transcend our birth?

Speculation gives the seeker
Hope--a blissful sanguinity--
While past, present, and future constantly
Merge into infinity?

-by Bob B (7-28-18)