Sacred Waste

The irretrievable tortures us.
Vacant and vain and vast and waste
Are all words grown from the same root,
Bearing fruit worthless and surplus.

Anything unconsumed is waste
Anything consumed beyond use
Is also waste. What we squander
And what destroys us, also: waste.

That which is empty is that which
Is lost and in which we get lost,
The vacant lot, the vacant stare,
Shell games, love in vain, bait and switch,

Such a waste, the rich life done soon,
The long and unaccomplished life,
Vast empty space, the black hole's maw,
The lost light of each waning moon.

Something in me is drawn to waste,
Much as I feel its repulsion,
The ruined, the toxic, the true,
The midden's trove, the hopeless case.