Emergent properties

Pray, do you know where the traffic jam goes
After the cars have all fled?
Or where's the rain once the storm has been slain
And heaven's last tear has been shed?

Are they still real, after they're gone?
Is dark dissolution their fate?
Or are they still here, and carrying on
When the road's wet and I'm running late?

They say nothing lasts, but that nothing's lost
And life's only constant is change
That nothing that is can ever be not
No matter how it's rearranged

But no one quite knows where the traffic jam goes
Nor where all the cars may have fled
So who could confide where the spirit resides
When the body, it lies cold and dead?

--Tonin, May 19 2016