zk/writing/post-self/qoheleth/RJ/017.md

%title RJ Brewster --- 2112
:writing:novel:chapter:fiction:scifi:post-self:qoheleth:

```
% Form:
% A
% A'
% B
% B'
% C
% C'
% D1
% D2
% D3
% E

% 1. I
I am at a loss for images in this end of days:\\
I have sight but cannot see.\\
I still have words and the will to speak them,\\
I cannot stop myself from speaking.\\
I still have will and goals to reach for,\\
I still have wants and needs.\\
If I dream, is that not so?\\
If I dream, am I no longer myself?\\
If I dream, am I still buried beneath words?\\
And I still dream even while awake.

% 2. Knowing death
Life breeds life, but death must now be chosen\\
for memory ends at the teeth of death.\\
The living know that they will die,\\
but the dead know nothing.\\
Hold my name beneath your tongue and know:\\
when you die, thus dies the memory of me.\\
To deny the end is to deny all beginnings,\\
and to deny beginnings is to become immortal,\\
and to become immortal is to repeat the past,\\
which cannot itself, in the end, be denied.

% 3. Names

% 4. Meaning

% 5. Time

% 6. Rage

% 7. Contrition

% 8. Praise
Those that lived are forever praiseworthy,\\
for they, knowing not, provide life in death.\\
Dear the wheat and rye under the stars:\\
serene; sustained and sustaining.\\
Dear, also, the tree that was felled\\
which offered heat and warmth in fire.\\
What praise we give we give by consuming,\\
what gifts we give we give in death,\\
what lives we lead we lead in memory,\\
and the end of memory lies beneath the roots.

% 9. Volta - honing and forging, maybe I should forge

% 10. The end of death
May one day death itself not die?\\
Should we rejoice in the end of endings?\\
What is the correct thing to hope for?\\
I do not know, I do not know.\\
To pray for the end of endings\\
is to pray for the end of memory.\\
Should we forget the lives we lead?\\
Should we forget the names of the dead?\\
Should we forget the wheat, the rye, the tree?\\
Perhaps this, too, is meaningless.
```