Immutable Antinomy · Track 26 · middle

Ode to Heraclitus

An ode to Heraclitus of Ephesus — the pre-Socratic philosopher who understood change as the only constant: you cannot step into the same river twice, for it is not the same river and you are not the same person. The track micro-shifts in pitch and tempo continuously throughout its runtime, never sitting still long enough to be the same recording at two distinct moments. The listener cannot hear this track twice — by the time the second listen begins, both the track and the listener have changed. The river keeps moving. An ode to flux as the fundamental condition of existence, the philosophy that became physics two and a half thousand years later.

Lyrics

The water is cold.
Just for a moment.
Your foot on the smooth stones.
You think you know this place.

The current presses against your ankle.
This water was snow, was cloud, was rain on a mountain miles from here.
It won't be here in a second.
And the skin on your foot, the cells that feel the cold,
they weren't here seven years ago.
Downstream from the great theater at Ephesus.
The sun is the same, you tell yourself.
But it isn't. It's burning its life away, a different star than it was yesterday.

You cannot step into the same river twice.
He said that.
For it is not the same river.
And you are not the same person.
Other and other waters flow.

The man who knew you, river, was the son of Bloson.
He left his one book on the marble floor of Artemis's temple.
Walked away from the city's fixed lines.
Went up into the mountains to live on what grows.
On grass and herbs, to taste the change of the world directly.
He knew the fire and the water are one.
Just a different speed of becoming.

You cannot step into the same river twice.
He wrote that down.
For it is not the same river.
And you are not the same person.
Other and other waters flow.

That was two and a half thousand years ago.
The scroll is dust. The temple is rubble.
But the words… the words keep moving.
From Greek to Latin to this language now.
This song is a cup holding the water for a moment.
Listen.
Can you hear it? It's already different.
The recording you started is gone.

Your foot on the stones.
The water is cold.
It pulls at you.
Always downstream.
Always becoming.
Gone.