Artifact #012, recorded and transcribed by R. Grunenwald. Dated circa A.S. 337, found in Anchorage, Alaska. Taught in PHIL 1290: Introduction to Post-Sun Philosophy at Yale University in the third century A.S. Grunenwald noted that the material was inspired by Irish philosopher George Berkeley’s (1685 – 1753) immaterialist doctrine.
The Dominion of Dark Deathness
If I cannot see something persist,
How do I know it even exists?
If against all this dark I cannot see,
How do I know that I do not cease?
The last light winks out, I cannot perceive
Of existences assured by the light of day
And in dark I realize I cannot believe
That the existences of prior sights stay
And yet I know I cannot be seen
In darkness so vast and to all sight mean.
Illumined realities in dark obscure
Of my own existence, I am unsure.
Dark hails the death cruel to my life tree,
All fruit forbidden from our feast.
In a world of dark, I cannot be.
For in grave darkness, I am deceased.
If in the dark I must unexist
Unexist, too, dark, unable to persist.
So much darkness all around me
So much dark I’m unable to see.
Against no light, dark cannot be free,
So dark, without light, is not such a beast.
In a world of dark, dark cannot be.
For in dark deathness, dark is deceased.