Beginnings Know Only Beginnings
by Odin Roark

Start
Go
Begin
Proceed

So many ways nature uses language
Yet a species of intellectual wealth
Decides there must be
Stop
End
Cease
Finish

From where might this human twist of logic originate?

Where did the denial of nature’s wisdom commence?
Some might opt for the bone as weapon
Where life could be ended
Be it beast
Or Neanderthal

So might have arisen
The dawn of weaponry
Of pugilist mind-set
Combatant possibility
Ruler
King
Emperor
Pope
Seer

Inevitably

A child crawls to walk
Walks to run
Runs to reach…

Bone
Spear
Sword
Gun
Missile

Yes

How well we’ve determined
The learned antitheses of beginnings
Absolving the guilty of insanity
In order to hasten an end

Hurriedly we await
A jettisoning of existence
Into what few accept
As particle-destiny

Another regurgitation of self-administered poison
Into the beginning of another coalescence
The kind we reject by thinking
There is somehow a finite end
Save some who anticipate a hereafter
To everything
So…

Bring it on we proclaim

How foolish the heart’s compliance
When the mind’s capacity
Knows better
Knows well reason and passion
Are essential partners in wisdom
Offering alternatives

And yet…