Stability

My persistence feels less than dynamic these days.
A sluggish river can last as near forever,
I suppose, as any canyon-cutting chuckler,
But it seems like a poorer use of scenery.

What is it about slack-bellied middle-aged men
That our melancholy and pride swell together?
(Guts, melancholy, pride, and little enough else,
Sings the tiny bank-side bird of innuendo.)

We find ourselves meandering between stories
Of how everything came to be, best stowed away
For now, and discoveries we thought we would make.
What are we? Molecular rivers of the same

Pattern, whatever pattern is, but different
Substance than we were yesterday or ever were.
And that's just it. All the substance of the pattern
Is changed, but the changing's substantially the same.

What in this transformation is worth complaint?
I was something that never was stable, changing
Stably into something that couldn't be the same
Except for continual change. Wait. Where was I?