My solitude of social distance is suddenly congested
by reminders today of the great cloud:
that crowd of witnesses huddled over there in eternity,
peering into time
from the vast margins of timelessness and voids of space.
How is it that we eternal beings—
now trapped in time,
like prehistoric insects in amber—
How is it we are so obsessed with the amber
that we imagine ourselves the focus?
Can we seriously sing of saints “who from their labours rest”
as though eternity is the monotonous, endless task of watching us?
Such dreary infinitude.
This amber chamber in which we live and move and be
confounds and imprisons us
defining our vision
regulating our expression;
so we envision our ancestors of millennia
eagerly peering over each other’s shoulders
to catch glimpses of us—
“the living ones”
The irony catches in my throat,
a log hung up on the flotsam of a cosmic flood.
That our amber-vision so defines us
rather than enabling us
to gaze beyond and marvel at the Idea
where amberlessness means movement.
