October in Oakland
︎︎︎ Curtis Yarvin
︎ Oct 14, 2026
The fate of these hills rests in the race
Of drizzle and spark. Rock and wind,
Patient and permanent and clean,
Stand on their seats. “Men are fools
To invest in real estate,” still
There is nothing here to trust but man.
How eager this mat of burrs and hay,
Not fruit or fodder, shade or lumber,
A menace to the little long-haired dog,
To not soak and rot from brown to gray?
The roofer’s cigarette, the wind-bit wire
Are every element’s first prayer.
Even the rain prefers black dust,
Ripe with vitamins of spring.
Nature is our enemy. It always was.
We exist only against its will.
If men were made of Plato’s metals
It would not matter, but our leaky bonds,
Our trust as often breached as made,
The shattered hairs in our DNA,
The knots of long imperfect lives,
The monkey-mess of failure and lies,
The state entangled in papers and bills,
Stir anger in these ordered gods:
And house and child, wife and dog
Drip in the rain, run from the flame.
Even the rock rocks from its faults,
Cracking our counterfeit concrete,
As winter winds bend the windows
And drain the gas between the panes.
I have lived over fifty years
And found nothing to add to Heraclitus.
I have lost the art of saying two things
In one line. I seem not to need it.
“I like to see the seasons come round
In good order.” If you marry me
You will see my body, as I saw
My wife’s before you. Have I said
This before? I have. An owl hoots.
From the glowing city spread below
Comes midnight’s distant auto hum
And now and then a long low boom.
Of drizzle and spark. Rock and wind,
Patient and permanent and clean,
Stand on their seats. “Men are fools
To invest in real estate,” still
There is nothing here to trust but man.
How eager this mat of burrs and hay,
Not fruit or fodder, shade or lumber,
A menace to the little long-haired dog,
To not soak and rot from brown to gray?
The roofer’s cigarette, the wind-bit wire
Are every element’s first prayer.
Even the rain prefers black dust,
Ripe with vitamins of spring.
Nature is our enemy. It always was.
We exist only against its will.
If men were made of Plato’s metals
It would not matter, but our leaky bonds,
Our trust as often breached as made,
The shattered hairs in our DNA,
The knots of long imperfect lives,
The monkey-mess of failure and lies,
The state entangled in papers and bills,
Stir anger in these ordered gods:
And house and child, wife and dog
Drip in the rain, run from the flame.
Even the rock rocks from its faults,
Cracking our counterfeit concrete,
As winter winds bend the windows
And drain the gas between the panes.
I have lived over fifty years
And found nothing to add to Heraclitus.
I have lost the art of saying two things
In one line. I seem not to need it.
“I like to see the seasons come round
In good order.” If you marry me
You will see my body, as I saw
My wife’s before you. Have I said
This before? I have. An owl hoots.
From the glowing city spread below
Comes midnight’s distant auto hum
And now and then a long low boom.