Conquest by Attrition

The gibbons are gone now. No more

River dolphins in the Yangtze—

Turns out Nature’s ephemeral

As any dynasty. Landscapes

Aren’t eternal, although this land

Still answers to authority.

What if we’ve made something lasting,

Having invented polities?

The particular emperors

Always go under, and their tombs

Are always plundered, but maybe

Culture has mastered Nature’s art

Of generating wave on wave

To break against the obdurate

Limits of existence, the craft

Of conquering by attrition.

What if we’re not going away

Anytime soon? Oh, you and I,

Certainly, our authorities,

Any given hegemony—

We’re all breaking, any time now.

We’re always breaking, all the time.

But what if it won’t be mountains

And rivers around our ruins

Left to meditate on the past—

Just more cities, more centuries,

The mountains and rivers ruined,

And instead of the cicadas

Carrying on, sounding mournful

To the poets projecting loss,

It’s just more poets, the crickets

Of culture, singing to ourselves?