Pilgrimage To Infinity

It’s a long journey that I will not be taking

          It’s a big trip for which I do not need to pack

There are far-off destinations that I won’t ever see

          There are wondrous times coming that I will never know

There are uncounted eons past of which I have no memory

          There shall follow infinitely more, all just the same to me

It’s a long journey I am not undertaking

          It’s a trip lasting forever, leaving without me

It’s a pilgrimage to infinity which I make as unrelated molecules

          It’s the bonfire of the life force in which I sparked so briefly

There is wondrous beauty on billions of worlds I cannot know

          There are fascinating creatures that I will never catalogue

It’s a great journey I prepare not to be a part of

          It’s the only real voyage, but I must leave the group

Just as I fall aside so does our kind become separated

          Just as I am remerged so must this species re-enter the void

It’s an omni-directional profusion I will no longer observe

          It’s a hopeless sacred struggle in which we all must simply perish

It’s an epic journey in which there are no chapters named

          It’s a nonsensical contradiction to entropy and darkness

There is no knowable destination on this personal voyage of discovery

          There are endless connections whose richness I will not feel

Just as gravity lessens with distance, so fade my actions over time

        Just as some functions never quite reach zero, our influences must ever remain

It is a great river that casts us to the shore and moves on without malice

          It is necessarily more than just oblivious to my brief awareness

It’s a long journey in even the least promising directions, all at once

          It’s a trip with temporary passengers and no conscious destination

         

It’s a long journey that I won’t be taking but there is nowhere that I might remain behind