Stoicism

The sun declines into the insipid darkness
like a memory that once blushed cheeks,
though now does nothing but slide off vacant eyes.
A beetle shuffles across my front porch,
saying goodnight to a snail as they pass,
each unaware of what will become
of the other in the danger
of the night.

And yet there is time for each,
and time yet for time to lay waste
to all the moments before their eyes,
strewn across the nearly endless horizon
of thought,
like the mighty Spanish armada
or a cigarette or cup of tea.

Andrew Venegas
San Jose
SJSU
poetry