Born from the embers of ancient dead stars
And shaped by the roiling youth of our sphere
Your edges were rough and your shape was untooled
Your creator the endless and natural law

Your birth-herald: anguishing cracking of rock
And the shattering cleaving of your mother shale
The wrenching, the roaring, the shivering earth
You were cast out on the high, lifeless shore

You were, and you watched, and the heavens spun on
No thinking, no wanting, no needing, no pain
Nor moved nor aroused by breeze or by gale
Your heartbeat, the eons that came and then went

When a sudden miraculous swirl then unfurled
Your timeless eyes dazzled, it burst out from nothing
It flooded your world and it flowed and it changed
Inconstant, ineffable, changing, bizarre

Blooming, then with’ring, then rising again
Its shapes inconceiveable to your solid mind
First specks, and then patches, then suddenly, roots
They, your first teachers of wounding and pain

Small fissures, a few chips, a weathering rut
Water flowed over and gnawed at your flesh
Then covered, engulfed, and shrouded in green
Around you, your brethren ground into sand

But you, you had fortune’s compassionate light:
The earth groaned and buckled and carried you high
So swiftly, so slowly, a mountain arose
And you were its capstone, its heavenly heart

But then, after ages! Your body, invaded!
So high were you pressed that the air became chill
Those precious few drops which had slithered inside you
They froze, they expanded, the agony grew

Then rending and killing it forced you apart
First one crack, then dozens, shards flaking away
Where you once had towered, a unified whole,
Now fractured and broken you cowered and fell

’till there was nothing to marker your tomb
No token remembered, no heart there aggrieved
Your glory once perfect now crushed and brought low
With nary a witness, and no one to mourn