Sestima for Future Thought
Sestima for Future Thought By Jenna Moses
If our world has survived boiling down to nothing,
Through our drawn-out years of wasting and decay
My hope is that you are well and alive.
A great-great-great-grandchild so far ahead
That you are much less than a memory to me,
And I, likely the same, to you.
It is not frequent, my thinking of you,
For the things I know are slim to nothing.
But I could guess the same in your idea of me:
One full of rot and decay,
Less about a young girl in your shoes, with journey ahead,
More of Grim Reaper, heaven, or spirit, than alive.
But I, though body long dead, am very much alive.
Present in the features of you.
In the shadow you see through the mirror ahead
But convince yourself is nothing.
A gentle, invisible hand in your mind when thoughts of decay
Frighten, but pull you closer to me.
Each of your pre-set decisions are the result of me.
Strange thought that the once alive
Delegate even as they decay.
My hope that I have only done well for you,
That my long-run failures equate to nothing,
That you have no reason to ponder my actions while ahead.
My final rest is, presently, long ahead,
The quiet pain of a drawn-out disappearing act, me
Succumbing to dust in the air, to just before nothing.
But until it all, I am alive.
I think of you
In each of my moments before decay.
Praying that the end-of-world threats decay,
My wandering hopes for the child ahead.
On you.
One with narrow eyes, reflections of me.
With such a fervor in your heart, no doubt you are alive.
Without the soul fire you surely burn, my life means nothing.
Such a shame that decay ultimately overcomes me.
Yet, still searching for your promised light ahead, I remain alive,
Yearning to know you, the outline in a distant, opaque nothing.
