Optimistic Nihilism

Most beliefs are shattered before they can solidify into faith.

I walked into the woods with a man who barely loved me.

From afar came the howls of the wolves.

Or perhaps it was not wolves at all,

but only the mountain birds instead.

We hunched over to gather the fallen, broken branches.

Beyond that mountain, they said, stretched a plain where 400 deer,

struck by lightning, rotted under the open sky.

Did the 400 deer, even for a moment, merge into a single being?

Carrying a bundle of shattered branches,

We resumed our walk along the mountain trial once more.

Like pilgrims along an endless loop,

we moved slowly,

without haste.