air fire water and stone a greek alchemy and a greek tragedy erupt one day in April in L.A. in a year many years hence and in a day eternally called the modern what age has ever been less? have we at last come to the present? or did we turn some corner the future is rent from time? the past is torn from its moorings? and this place the bed of our being shall be recognized as that from which we seek escape? and will we ever know us, when we survey the infinite ahead and behind? and calculate with our mathematics that our moment vanishes into immateriality - infinitesimal the breath of our lives lost in ignorance and ignominy? air fire water and stone arise and fly in our faces one day in April in L.A. and we freeze in ice to see and be seen all is stillness all spins within this circle of the known and the unknown all lies within the hands of God as this human thing toddles in chaos justice flickers and flounders in a courtroom and a nation weeps and tears at its flesh one proud moment - a hubris that ignites a terror a single emotional wave sweeps across the heavens and cries that man will never learn asks what comes from this passage? fire erupts in the air stone burns into ash - the elements shift and re-form in the eyes of little children and the cataracts of age strength and youth fly in the night, apart from themselves what sets this human apart from the animal? this illusion of meaning and the destruction of one-another in jealousy hatred and rage? earth's species flee by instinct to survive another day as the seed of the mighty pine swirls up and pops in the fire one forest dies to give birth to another air fire water and stone the speck and the behemoth roll and flounder but only man tears his cloth and smears his chest this curse of aspiration this blessing of inspiration are wrapped in neurological and isolated synapses triggered within the law of lawlessness time races and falters - halts for all we know then grinds over us as the wheel rolls on again lives, words and words, and lies we lie buried within our data swirling down into a vortex - split, punctuated and disjointed myths explode as God sprinkles tears upon those which they called Hope and after five days the weather report says we had a light sprinkle over L.A. cast forth from a dry and forlorn sky and just to set us about washing our cars again in this mindless repetition sitting upon this curb upon this street not seeing this place called metropolis one might come to wonder how at all the weather is known what are these cycles of the elements air fire water and stone?