What Will Last?

What, indeed, will last?

Will this desire to be free of pain?

Will this desire to wash out indifference?

Will the beauty of the coreopsis last?

What will last?

If the universe is expanding, can it last?

Will it continue to expand, using up all that energy?

Will it continue to breed stars and galaxies?

Will it last?

Perhaps.

Perhaps it will all last—

The flower and the cup, the braid and the laugh—

Perhaps it will all last.

Perhaps, however,

It will last in a different form.

Why not?  Why not in a different form?

Why not have the cup morph into a pail?

Or the braid into a rope?

Or the laugh into a flower?

Perhaps, however,

The only thing that will last

Is this desire to understand.

--May 31, 2013