Naming the Beauties

by Gary Hardaway

Implicit in each cell and star,
every particle and wave,
is the code of its own undoing-

the signature of God
consigning everything
to the saturating energies of time.

The house divides against itself
and falls in the fullness of time.
Flesh emerges and decays.

Gravity gathers
and squeezes what it gathers
into the something

else it's going to be.
From the churning flux of things,
choose the moments of awe

to carry with you as you fall apart.
While you can, name the beauties
born of everything's impermanence.