What Wonders

What Wonders

When all we see is sorrow, let us then remember joy.
When all is utter darkness, let us then recall the light.
When all around is meanness, let us then remember love.
When all we hear is wailing, let us then recall the song.

And let us all remember that the moment is the prize
That yields its passing pleasure or yields instead its pain.
That moment, let us savor, let us greet it as a friend,
Who was with us when we started and will be at the end.

We are here between the atoms and the stars that light the sky.
We are stretched between the starting and the ending of the all.
We are less than motes in sunbeams, we are ants that crawl and die,
And yet we are as oceans that have depths that hold the all.

We are nothing that is special—no more than drifting leaves,
No more than dust that’s blowing—or specks of froth on waves.
And yet we sit and worry and grasp what we should yield.
But see—we ply our sciences and all our trades and arts.

Oh sing of this creation that needs no artisan!
Oh raise your arms in wonder and dance beneath the stars.
What filigrees are woven, what horrors and delights!
Oh savor this—your being, and your passing days and nights.

What wonder and what torture, what pleasure and what pain!
Our yesterdays forgotten, our tomorrows never known,
Our day, from dawn to sunset, our night in which we dream—
What meaning, in this marvel that’s the life that never stays?

I do not know the meaning and I doubt the ones who preach.
I’ve spent my life in learning and I’ve tried my best to teach.
But as my days are ending and I’m yearning for my rest,
I remember still your kindness, in this heart that you had blessed.

I still recall your singing as I still recall the dawn
As the dusk is now descending and I know that I’ll be gone.
I have seen the stony faces, I have sensed the hearts of stone,
But I still recall your smiling—and I know I’m not alone.

And so to those who hear me, I am calling from the past.
Let your present be your treasure, for the little while you last.
Remember still your pleasures, releasing all your pains—
And laughing at your losses, surrender all your gains.

2017 October 10th, Tue.