Ever Once at All

The hills aren’t rumpled,
But they look rumpled,
Olive drab blankets

Under desert sun
Setting soon enough.
It’s the smallest thing,

The most obvious,
Maybe stupidest—
Everything’s setting

Soon enough. You can
Make anything stand
For the end—the sun,

The quiet city,
Your crumbling body,
The clouds that gather

To discuss and judge
Whether the humans
Spoke adequately

On this occasion
About the weather
Or flubbed it again,

And at the same time
The same afternoon
Of clouds and olives,

There’s nothing setting,
Everything’s going
On and on, whether

Sooner or later,
And all your making
Things stand for the end—

The spider means death,
The stranded seals mean
The decline and fall,

The olive hillsides
Bathed in low light mean
A long-gone era—

Means nothing at all
Will ever stop, not
Ever once, at all.