Air moves without purpose;
light shines without being itself illuminated;
waves break and make a spectacle
without consideration of an audience;
earth shifts and shakes and splits and shoves,
yet all of its changes lead it nowhere.
The natural world lacks purpose,
and doesn't need any,
but I seek it
and thus set myself apart from
all that has produced me
and all else that exists.

I study the world and learn its details,
to which it is not privy;
identify processes and causality
and achieve mastery;
but I discover no inherent meaning,
no absolutes,
merely momentary fictions
that surprise, entertain, disconcert,
then are forgotten.

Yet my inquiry feels purposeful,
though I can't say what drives it,
nor what fuels my need to feel it so...