small but significant

shouldering forward
i push the megalith with all my might
but it scarcely moves a millimetre
towering high above
the ideals we all work toward
billions of stone faces etched
yearning eyes, but expressions fading

the romantics who loved and created
the enterprising who worked and toiled
the thinkers who pondered and discovered
unmovable the monument
the weight of all their achievements
for all contained in my mind
and the footnotes i occupy in books
will one day dissolve into dust

but that doesn’t stop me
i swing with the highs and lows
speak tender and care harder
industrious in a craft
live my means but walk new paths
quiet in the cosmic noise
but loud enough to me

in a minuscule, infinitesimal way
shifting the pillar of humanity
after my blink is all but distinguished
i’ll be carved in that stone
intermingling with the searching faces
resting in a moment’s meaning
before fading from living thought