My heart beats in the distension between
Eternity and mortality which
Meet at the seams of all I've ever seen.
How often have I peered through a loose stitch,
Wondering, when I leave this skein behind,
How far my soul must fly before it rests.
Why must my soul, from my body, unwind?
Am I destined to fail the final test?
Even belief in a blessèd heaven
Leaves so much to the imagination
That some have turned it into a weapon
And, by fear, set nation against nation.
Even so, of such is our soul composed,
Bad with good entangled, God only knows!
Why call it New England Stoicism,
When underneath the rocky soil, there lie
Bottomless terrors and paroxysms,
Bursting through the soul like a newborn's cries?
Vicissitude is life's only constant.
So why pretend that change does not exist?
Why deny natural decay's portents?
Why ignore the existence of death's list?
As if your old house were Buckingham Palace?
And its unused china something precious?
Preserving only what you miss, will miss
Those moments in life that are most precious,
For which we will be judged at heaven's gate.
Change must be allowed to change; too late!
Generation after generation,
Vice and virtue breed with one another,
Until hate is easy, and love is maudlin.
And hearts, like flies over muck, do hover.
O that one could sever this sullied past
From we whose hearts are stained and sunk by it.
That which we are told to put first, comes last,
In the order of crude survivalists.
Love is preached and praised, but rarely practiced.
Art is punished unless profitable.
More valued are the words, about them, lisped.
So we cannot bear to leave the bubble.
In your own reflection find your own way
To marry past and present with today.
God repay the conscienceless engineers
For the pure sweet hearts with which they gamble
Seek not their greed which monetizes fears
And goads minds like picadores goad bulls.
They don't seem to stop and wonder "Should I,"
Unless the "should" could threaten the bottom line,
Until that line becomes their only why
And they call conscience just a Luddite whine.
Oh, how easy, on them, to pin the blame.
For they would not be "they" without users
So vulnerable to weaponized shame
And words from anonymous accusers.
They could not act so low were we not vain,
Don't let them choose what is true, what is sane.
Thank you for reading! I greatly regret that I will most likely never be able to meet you in person and shake your hand, but perhaps we can virtually shake hands via my newsletter, social media, or a cup of coffee sent over the wire. They are poor substitutes, but they can be a real grace in this intractable world.
