From Fragments

I am Heraclitus.
Why pull me
this way and that?
Everything’s at odds
and common war
is king. Yet lyre
needs gut;
bow, its string.
What I hold I lose
what eludes me
never leaves.
Fire is more
than the currency
of stars. Time
is a child playing
checkers. The myriad
faces of the crowd
are as nothing.
Lightning bolts guide me
to a sun that never sets.
In death, as in life,
I defend truth.