We, the prepared

pay our dues to time, once,

twice, forever.

Folding and unfolding, 

time remembers

what we shall prepare for 

in the future

and what we have failed to prepare for 

in the past. 

Nature, drunk on instinct,

grounded in its own tangibility, 

does what it pleases. 

Earth shifts and adapts, 

patient and assured as 

it calibrates to the chaotic 

pulses of nature.  

We challenge it.

Count the number of times 

the sun 

rises and falls, rises and falls. 

Prepare for hunger, prepare for pause. 

Prepare for discomfort, prepare for isolation. 

Harmony revolts, 

even as

we propel our wishes into the presumed 

space of tomorrow.

They scatter 

on the surface of a drifting stream, 

unorganized, patternless, lying heavy and flat, 

until at last, 

they fold into each other, 

collapse into themselves, 

and thrust forward 

to to be eaten by the water 

below. 

Text in collaboration with Katrina Eresman