One Certainty

Crane your neck out the window
As the eve-lit trees rush by,
Or stroll among their twilight shapes
While starlight pricks the sky;
Stop and take a photograph,
But you can never win –
However hard or well you try,
You will never take it all in.

Face the trembling vagrant;
Do not avert your eyes –
And nurture in your deepest heart
The terror of goodbyes;
Take the coldest breath of life
And press it to your skin;
Smell the bullet; taste the knife;
You will never take it all in.