AS DUST

Too much beauty all at once
is perturbing to the eye and makes
no sense; we must think it's
expendable—that all along it's just
the ether versus us—

but of course we're dead
wrong; it's this whole disturbing
place—this blotchy chaotic
and concussed fever dream of a
universe—that's essential

and the poor human actor
who fritters and struts
that's eccentric and
superfluous—born uncertain, gone
mysterious.