For What?

    
For What?
   
We aren’t. Then we are. And then we aren’t anymore.
It seems we come from nothing, live – and then, to nothing, go.
But who has strength to face this or the wit to understand it?
For all we learn, from other things, implies, “It isn’t so.”

Could something come from nothingness and vanish back to that?
“That’s magic,” you would say, “like pulling rabbits from a hat.”
And if I said it’s real, that there’s nothing up the sleeve,
The men in white might come for me and want to have a chat.

So many myths that humankind has conjured, to assure
The certainty of that which can’t be ever known for sure…
Sobriety, sobriety, it’s time for you to show
That all our gods in heavens are but treasured fictions pure…

We come from darkness into light.  To darkness, we return.
We come from silence, hear – and then, there’s silence, as we burn.
From sense-less state to sensing state, and senselessly, at end,
There’s nothing left of us, except the ashes in the urn…

But which of us will bear this and not call out to say, “No!
There was more to us than ashes, so there's still a remnant more.”
And who will hear our calling out and who will understand it?
For though it seems so senseless, there’ll be nothing left to show.

Posterity, posterity, that follows our behinds,
We leave for you the imprints of our bodies and our minds,
As children or as images, as things or streams of words.
And each of these, you will devour and only leave the rinds…

We weren’t, then we were and then we won’t be yet again.
And so it is with octopi and so it is with men.
The seasons, they return – as does the day that follows night.
And some say that we do return – for what, they do not ken.
  
2014 May 14th, Wed.
Brooklyn, New York