Fountain Meditations

Here I sit on a round stone seat
Watching the water spewing
From a dozen places
Around the fountain
Shaped like an eight-pointed star
In the center of the square.

Reflecting human life I see
This elegant display
This Fountain of Existence, if you will.
Each jet continuously gushing forth
Streams of eternity-
Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years.
A ceaseless, surging, silent sound
Of endless epochs going round.

The water shoots into the air
And lands in the middle
Mixing with a million mingled memories
Effervescing deeper and deeper into oblivion
As the water splashes on and on
And froths and foams and bubbles white.

Lights shine from the bottom
Clear but soft and distant
Not like mere electric fixtures
But a backdrop of stars
Immune to time
Forever fixed
Behind rushing, evanescing eons.

Silently they sit and watch
What is and what has been
The water churns
The decades roll
The bubbles burst
The ages fall.
And it’s all the same to them.