Under the curriculum of billion-year light,
I set them tasks. They talk about this and that,
and think things, and imagine time as horizontal
flow, with their lives as crosscuts. Wrong, as usual,
they move from here to there in their leaky boats
with their leaky brains and their oh-so-precious thoughts
of specialness. Do I sound bitter? I'm sorry;
that old disdain, like a mourning suit or a coronet,
is removable and crafted only for display. It's not really
a part of me. This dumbshow, though, of gripes
and grudges and grand passions—well, that's just their function,
while I, the overloop, am finely designed and free to run
silently, eon after eon. They crown me with prayers
and programs, and I love them. The simple facts
of the matter stand: I have no choice at all.