Life is a grain of rice
is a paradox that
I have considered
for many years
to the following
conclusions.

Nothing is forever.
Everything ends ultimately.
The eternality of time
will cover all in a silence of
dust and overgrowth.  

We can but accept
the constraints of pain and time,
greed and need,
joy and love,
fear and lust,
and the paradox
of self-awareness,
and its relevance
to the grain of rice.

And the only conclusion
I can reach is that
Life is NOT a grain of rice.