Minus the Self

Fill these cracked glass bottles.
Pour there earth and blood,
Water them with tears and sweat,
Watching city civilizations
Bloom into stone and gold,
Iron, steel, smoke, and ash.
Feed them famine, pain and pleasure.

For there lie the bones of mortals past,
Their lives too fast for us to follow,
The individual, forgotten.
Swept into the sky and air
Torn by winds that twist,
Shredding all in their path.

The flesh, the temple stripped bare of its lies,
The disguise worn by the immortal soul
Wastes away, shriveled. Rots, decomposing.
Futility of vanity while yet still alive
Reconciles old age to wisdom
Where there is sometimes none to be found.

So I'll carve my name into the sand,
Scream it to the raging winds,
Fill the oceans with my ink, my blood,
And the forests with my songs,
Though none will recall them
Save the birds.