Transience

   
Transience
     
The days go by – and then the years.
They're dappled with our smiles and tears.
We're born to live awhile and die,
Yet some presume to question why.

They ask, at birthing, with a wail –
And all through life, to no avail –
And even with their final sigh
They question why we live and die.

But none has found, in any season,
For birth and death, a cause or reason –
And yet, without that answer why,
It seems that life's a pointless lie.

So some surrender to their fate
Or find their drives in love or hate.
But even these, when children die –
They raise their arms to the watching sky.

How precious is the fleeting now!
To hold it still, we don't know how.
So past and future feed the lie,
As we, our transience, deny.

2013 March 30th, Sat.
Brooklyn
  

Exile

 
Exile

We left the lands that gave us birth
And chose to cross the seas.
And providence or choice decreed
The place, where we would cease.

And loneliness is now our lot,
But why should we complain?
We chose to leave our friends and kin.
What's left to then explain?

For many, work is all we have.
It keeps us occupied.
But often, it consumes our lives.
All else is nullified.

A few find satisfaction
In the work they do.
And others, seeking traction,
Find that's lacking too.

And when the working life's at end,
The vacuum then awaits.
No village there, nor neighborhood,
But walls that hold in place.

It's said, his home's a castle to
The Englishman – but then
It also is a prison, where
The Briton finds his end.

And so it is, in North and West –
And even, now, in East.
If misery loves company,
There's solace there, at least!

2013 March 23rd, Sat. evening
Brooklyn