Poem/Riddle/Prose/MESS

[Holsety]

Conceived with a mixture of irrationality and rationality.

Every day the sun riseth not
Every day the sun shineth not
Every day the sun heateth ye not
Every day the sun burneth ye not

Every day the sun doth shine, it groweth thine food, and it is I who let it
Every day the sun doth shine, it bringeth ye heat, and it is I who let it
Every day the sun doth shine, it bringeth ye day, and it is I who let it.

Every day the sun doth shine, it bringeth ye energy to the fledgling reactors built by human hands, and it is I who let it.
Every day the sun doth rise, it bringeth ye hope, and it is I who let it.

And now the sun doth sink.

Who am I?

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Someday, long after you humans must worry over it, the sun will burn to a smoldering dead pile of ash,

and I may well remain to guard you from it - ask a physicist, they have imprisoned me and know the answer better, or so they think - and you will care not a fig, and it will gladden the heart of mine you thought you killed that you have forgotten.

[I, I am not you, but I am not sorry, I have eaten all the plums from the icebox, and I watched with Bruegel as Icarus drowned when you failed to shield him from the sun, and expressed in my poetry less misery over the predictable outcome, and I am sorry you failed to save Icarus from the sun's melting heat! So stop your protests and get on with it!]

Who am I, to whom so few prayers are offered? To whom all gifts given are paltry sums worthy of denial?

The atmosphere of the Earth.

TERMINUS EST: This means, according to a well-intentioned liar, "This is the Line [of Division]" and "This is the End." It names the most exquisite fictional sword I know, imagined principally for execution. Now go and cross again this line, this end, this sword, this atmosphere, as the man who wielded the broken blade did, and enter once again infinite space, beyond the bounds of Earth. But if you return to Earth, you will bring it only destruction.

Or consult your local newspaper, if you'd dream a dream less grand than mine, and hope to suffer less pain for its failure.

Thanks: Gene Wolfe, then William Carlos Williams, Bruegel and Auden are owed the most after what we might call God.