Senlin, A Biography: Part 01: His Dark Origins - 07

And am I then a pyramid? says Senlin,     In which are caves and coffins, where lies hidden     Some old and mocking hieroglyph of flesh?     Or am I rather the moonlight, spreading subtly     Above those stones and times?     Or the green blade of grass that bravely grows     Between to massive boulders of black basalt     Year after year, and fades and blows?     Senlin, sitting before us in the lamplight,     Laughs, and lights his pipe. The yellow flame     Minutely flares in his eyes, minutely dwindles.     Does a blade of grass have Senlin for a name?     Yet we would say that we have seen him somewhere,     A tiny spear of green beneath the blue,     Playing his destiny in a sun-warmed crevice     With the gigantic fates of frost and dew.     Does a spider come and spin his gossamer ladder     Rung by silver rung,     Chaining it fast to Senlin? Its faint shadow     Flung, waveringly, where his is flung?     Does a raindrop dazzle starlike down his length     Trying his futile strength?     A snowflake startle him? The stars defeat him?     Through aeons of dusk have birds above him sung?     Time is a wind, says Senlin; time, like music,     Blows over us its mournful beauty, passes,     And leaves behind a shadowy reflection,     A helpless gesture of mist above the grasses.