A meditation.

In my beginning is my end. In succession
Buildings rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is a new library, an open lawn, or a walkway.
Old stone to new libraries, old textbooks to new students,
Old paper to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, grass, and dirt,
Made of those that came before, and which will claim us all.
Students arrive and leave: there is a time for bonding
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to beat against these hallowed halls
And to shake the campus where the pupils walk,
And to shake the checkered past with an unforgiving force.

As the uncertainty looms, as our time is spent,
Who is there to remember us? Our lifetimes burning in every moment,
And not the lifetime of one student only,
But of old stories, old posts that cannot be deciphered?
We begin from home. As we grow older, the world becomes stranger,
The route more complicated, of togetherness and isolation.
Our time may be up. But, tonight,
There is a time for the evening under fluorescent lights,
Companionship is most nearly itself
When here and now, and the uncertain future, cease to matter.
We all ought to be our own memory
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the empty times and the fuller times,
The river flow, the wind cry, the vast city
Of the mortal and the god. In my end is my beginning.

It has truly been an honor writing for Bwog. As my gratitude for the friends I’ve made here remains ineffable, I can only hope to communicate a fraction of it. Thank you, Bwog, for everything. 

Our last open meeting will be in Lerner 510 at 9 PM tonight. We hope to see you there. 

Ends… beginnings… via Bwog Memory