Immaterial materialism

We all search for that Thing
The elusive dream
The forbidden fruit

And nightly,
we contemplate the ceiling beams
and reflect upon
our daily deeds

"Time slips between my grasping hands
Like the silver breath
from the lips of drowning men
Can I find the Thing
before my death?

Between the sheets
lies a being
whose clock-heart-time-bomb drum
still beats"

So on - and fucking on - we strive
we weather soles
of shoes and feet
and weather souls
in rain or sleet.

When climacterically
A red hot burst of light
and fire and flames
with smoke and sparks
All-engulfing, all-encompassing
engulfs us all and engulfs us whole

We have finally found that goddamn Thing!
We revel in the glory!
As drying flowers before the hearth
As pigs in muck and clay and earth

Hairs on end.
Rigid, proud.
A lightning strike
white and loud.

...

And then, the silence rises
like an evening shadow
showing us
what the euphoria disguises

There is a void now.
The leaf has grown, prospered
and now it tumbles,
brown, it crumbles.

On the path of life
when we plateau,
we must recall

the hard ground trod
the cold nights spent
and hot days' sweat

Then we will know
The path is not about where we go
or what we reach, which destination

Instead,
the path will help you find
which manner you were born to stride.