The gods, like children,
do not take all that naturally to instruction –
like children, they are only too aware of their own immortality,
and surrender it only under duress.
While staring, past the glass,
at a mountain of leaves
that waits invitingly in the alley behind the refectory,
the gods cast listless ears at the figure
droning out the laws at the board:
entropy this, and futility of desire that,
and so on and so forth, ad infinitum, to the grave.

No one spoke, and then Nature
raised her chubby fingers skyward.
And offered a response.
The word of her response –
if it could be said to be a word –
was Spring, and with that word there was no longer silence
in the lecture halls, and the bells rang out explosions
amongst the hyacinths, and the gods laughed
because the lesson was over, and it was time,
again, to throw themselves into the mud,
purposeless, and free.