Sap rises to the leaf on which an insect settles
The wings seize the sunlight and split its spectrum of colours
The two front legs work furiously at the head and antennae for several minutes
This could be compulsive cleaning or else it might be scratching
The sun slants its heat over the late tropical afternoon
And this forest is awash with the buzz and hum of predatory animal traffic
A bird catches and snatches the insect forever from leaf and from life itself
Leaf and tree, insect and bird fall below the earth
Time turns them all into coal – a black and tangibly total obliteration of their being. Others turn to oil
I flick a flame from my lighter, burn the gas refined from natural fuel, light a cigarette that could contain my own Death
For a second, in the neat yellow flash of fire, I almost see the bird rise like a phoenix, a rainbow of insect wings in Its beak
Or it's as if I'm witnessing the foliage of a long-lost forest burning in the sunlight centuries and centuries ago
But it's all gone before I draw the first lungful of smoke
And already I feel the impatience of time, its vortex drawing my own flesh and bone beyond life and down towards Earth and coal and tar
There is a sense of the self dissolving into smoke in the lungs of the eternal