The hammer of your eyes
Shapes everything you see
Until reality collapses
From the weight of persistence

The thingness of things is such
That it mutates to meet expectation,
Owes allegiance to the naming ritual
Rolls from the tongue with lilting guile
And slips from the grasp as easily
As money or grace

These things carry meaning:
Sky, sea, mountain and plain
Whose rivers tie the bounds
Of Earth together

These things rip meaning from the heart:
Ash, coal, and smoke,
Zippered into a theory of sky
Beyond the bezelled horizon.

We ignore destiny,
Hoping to write our own stories,
Like Oedipus, like God,
Unaware that fate has no will
But is bound by the sacred law
Of irony.