A Night at Long Lake

Dead leaves ride the lake’s waves
like tiny caskets.
The stars look down,
but those stars know nothing
of life or death,
or my sorrows or regrets.
Nature is simply there.
It knows nothing of wanting more.
Its parts equal its whole.
Rocks by the thousands
line the lake’s shore,
as they slowly erode into dust.
Gulls cry like mourners,
at a funeral for something
I’ll never know,
as if it disappeared
into a black hole.
I know the stars by astronomy,
and life through biology.
I’m a poor scholar at best,
but I think that peace
isn’t the same as eternal rest.
There should be more
to my life than merely my death.