" Lady, that soft skin, Your bones and mine Will all be dust Before another mountain’s raised. No oceans, Not a river, Hardly a stream Will dry Before our eyes do, And our hearts. – But should I love you less, For such ephemerality? – I think the more instead. For our love’s in the real world; Profane and carnal, at times banal, But in our human sight, sublime. No greater, but quite different To dying suns and levelled range compared We share from our two separate selves A happenstance understanding, An unfateful fate, Designed by, decreed by nothing, Ungiven, not granted, But ours the more for that, The thing no thing can ever learn, The first and final lesson: Mortality is a quality of life. (January–February 1979) "

― Iain Banks , Poems