Simple

By Rae Armantrout

This article appeared in the April 14, 2008 edition of The Nation.

March 27, 2008

for Aaron Korkegian

Complex systems can arise
from simple rules.
It's not
that we want to survive,
it's that we've been drugged
and made to act
as if we do
while all the while
the sea breaks
and rolls, painlessly, under.
If we're not copying it,
we're lonely.
Is this the knowledge
that demands to be
passed down?
Time is made from swatches
of heaven and hell.
If we're not killing it,
we're hungry.

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