Treasures On Earth, Treasures In Heaven Poem by Brian Taylor

The scent of the rose
fades in the dry air
and the roses themselves
shrivel and fall.

The Rose Garden too
succumbs to the developer
and his high-rise flats
which brush against the sky.

Red bricks give way
to changing architectural fashion
or a motorway
or a bomb.

And as the polar ice melts
the sea slips slowly in
with its colonies of fish and crustaceans
that slide and crawl in and out the ruins.

The very earth perishes by fire
or, growing dry,
it hurtles through space
like a rock thrown by a giant,
to crash against another
and shatter into intercosmic fragments.

When God himself comes
to visit his ‘world without end’,
he finds a rapidly dispersing
cloud of dust.

Returning to his heaven,
his throne grows cool
and he too falls
into the ebb and flow of becoming.

Do not let your heart cling
to what you cannot take with you
to what you cannot take with you
to what you cannot take with you.

What can you take with you?