by Nathan Breck

Created on: August 14, 2009   Last Updated: August 16, 2009

What burns will vanish, what consumes will be
Consumed as well, that is the way the world continues:
Lurching through fire-leaps, tumbling over obstacles
With a jolt of electric frenzy, a momentary revolution
Rolling the log one more time, and maybe another luckily.

All these bodies are over half-tanked so they'll run
Pretty well, for now, for quite a few nows, for days,
For weeks without a stop with luck and grit.
But they'll stop; it always happens, and fuel
Will burn a hole again in the tank
Of the fuel-eater. This is the nature of energy.
There is no leap without a fall,
The world negates the leap.

So then give some sustenance: this is how
A man may walk a hundred miles smiling,
On a belly of good greens and meats,
Sustained and supported by land-unlocked
Food, simple having and taking to eat,
Digest without consuming, inhale sweet scents,
Exhale to blow a tiny dust-kite's play.

Fuel fails, at last, and finally everything slows,
Matching paces with, or falling far behind perhaps,
The staff-swinging walker: the well-fed walker.

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