Reassuring yourself by silencing
others with statements
about life: your only certainty

Maybe there is more, should we
prepare ourselves, ignorant
of what, except for that
meaningless dying

as if that were our goal
or the outcome of our life
as if

the animals and plants that live
to live and otherwise would not
exist, do not matter

Once, it stops, apparently
there is no beginning without an end
and predestined we flutter on
like flailing summer birds