Alone, By The River Aveyron (After Tu-Fu) Poem by Anthony Weir

The pain that beauty brings to me might seem to you ridiculous, but I'm not half-crazed - not
with alcohol or cannabis, and not by madness
or by love. Springtime is frightening
as the biosphere ploughs on so pluckily to its doom.
I am lucky, I will die soon - none too soon -
but this gorgeous river and its bird-filled banks
will die slowly, become an ooze,
a miasma in its gorge.
Little buds, open carefully. The whole planet
is a grave already and will become another grave.
Stratum on stratum, grave upon grave the earth;

and we in our vainglory think our species is significant - because we have dreamed up significance and worth.