Megalomania II.

MEGALOMANIA II

   It can be sane to remember how petty
   your foibles are in the scheme of things, except
   you don't know that, you don't actually know that,
   because of how consequences ramify.
   You could be making a memory for someone
   ('He said something I have never forgotten')
   and forgetting it. You could be providing
   a perfect example of ignominy
   from a certain point of view. Or wondering
   why you bother as in Why do I bother
   sending out for pastries and making a cup
   of lime-flower tea for a change, when all he does
   is sit there picking and sipping morosely?

   You could even be feeling slightly guilty
   about an action for which someone like me
   centuries hence will be sincerely grateful,
   such as setting out to see a branchless ash
   and islands of purple shadow, while leaving
   an injured friend behind in a lime-tree bower.
   What are the chances of that? Go calculate
   the concentration of squid ink in the sea.