Teeth grind against time, older than heart beats;
bury themselves in the nape of the world
and through that grit they grunt back, “I dare you,”
so in droves we come to mine from them ‘truth.’

But ‘truth’ does not move through time as we do.
Desperate for relevance in our space,
we seek stability in the journey;
while what is true finds no movement worthy.

Thus those mandibles remain static
while we struggle for purchase against them;
should we win, overcoming their long face
we will have, in the end, lost the race.

The drums of victory may course in our veins
as we stand atop the corpse of impulse
to reflect on the unconquerable
hoping someday to be ponderable,

yet our triumph is too brief a passing
to reconcile against the scales of time,
like a flash of lightning through the night sky;
radiance wasted in a blink of an eye.