Anneke Brassinga and Lucretius

short-lived

‘Only the atoms and the void are immortal,’

says Lucretius. What binds us is the fact we

shall be broken down into our single atoms.

What binds us is to be short-lived and love each other,

to feel more for our common mortal knowledge

of each other’s mortal being than for those

confounded atoms. Death is too small

and too great, but life is stronger, consists

in the fleeting force of what is weak,

in the exceptional coincidence

of this material gathering, in joy

that quite surpasses all the atoms.