Justification.
We ride this life out
Crossing oceans in rowboats.
We see sea serpents and mermaids,
They tease us with
Exotic ideas,
A fistful of treasure,
And the constant threat
Of a murky demise.

What would we give?
Was there ever a place
More safe than womb?
What would we give
To return, once more
To our original living room?

I ponder these things,
I am human, after all.

Did we know what life was all about
Before we signed on?
Were we given a brochure?
Were we given a map?
Did we get answers to questions
From the lifetime just past?

Did we get to pick parents,
Were we told what to do and where to go?
Were we volunteers
To put our x on the dotted line
Back there, in status in vitro?

Oh, If we had only known
Of fate, to shed some light
Of destiny, to have a purpose
For the roles we’d end up playing
All the days of our lives!
If we had accepted such a mission,
Well, it might have made the deal a little bit sweeter.

But from an elder’s perspective
It wouldn’t be difficult to say,
“It was all a bit much, wasn’t it?”
The whole thing rather futile;
There were too many people.
There's too much anger.
Too much misery.
We’re poisoning our planet.
We‘re forsaking our children,
All we really ever seem to do
Is make things worse,
Mess it up more,
Or mess it more up?

That might be one view,
If you lived your whole life
And never amounted to anything,
Constantly feeling poor,
Struggling to survive,
Destined to find solace
In a world of the mundane,
The mud and the muck.

Or perhaps, one may have successfully escaped
Into some inner sanctum, some spiritual realm.
Without enlightenment, we’ve been told,
There is no hope.
Without hope,
Would we even want to live
To fight another day?

Well, would we?

They say God is beyond our understanding,
Yet everywhere I go there are
Whole crowds of people
Who swear they know God really, really well.
What we ultimately know of God,
At least in my opinion,
Comes through
Personal meditation,
A bit of ancient prose,
And a healthy fear of fear itself!

Otherwise,
Life is
Carving out your own reality.
Starting with a rough-hewn piece of wood
And the pocket knife you borrowed.
Only to find that you are
Whittling away at a petrified construct
As if you could make a difference.

And sometimes you do…

You do
Until you become quite old,
(If you get lucky.)
Then aging becomes ailing
And if you live long enough,
(Not so sure about that luck now, are we?)
You’ll likely find yourself pretty much alone.

So, you may wonder,

Did this vessel ever serve a purpose?
Could there have been a better way,
Another way?
This game of space and time,
With someone elses' rules and regulations
To be played?

Let’s just say,
The whole world
Was there for the taking,
For all those would-be pirates,
A mythical mobile abode on the rolling seas.
To live by one's wits and the cut of yer jib,
To have a useful purpose,
A mission.
To know that there will always be
A certain honor amongst thieves.

Wouldn’t it be nice
If we had had this sense of adventure
From the hour that we were first conceived!
Our kicking,
Impatience for the journey to begin.
Our mortal souls, thus eager to be freed!

Would it matter then, if in the end
We were trapped in cruel dementia,
Imprisoned in a cage of ribs?
To live hard and die young,
Wouldn’t that be the better idea?

Then again,
What if life were to knock us down,
Trip us up with some unforeseen tragedy?
Is this bond so sacred
That it can never be broken?
Could we at least consider another way,
Say, death by our own hand?
Disregarding the label of sin
Why should any act of courage dishonor us,
Our family or friends?
Or would such a dreadful deed
Forever haunt our children
And taint our souls for eternity?

And speaking of haunting
Is there the slightest chance
We might come back as ghosts?
Or will our spirit be too busy
Singing with angelic choir
Or spiraling skyward in ascent,
A blackened puff of smoke?

I am not a rich man
Though I’ve gazed
Upon a few,
I’ve seen
People with perfect faces,
Pomp and circumstance,
Pulpit and politic,
Puffing contraband cigars,
All Carnegie smiles, and lipstick, as they
Ride the money train,
Livin’ the life.
They be partyin’ hearty,
‘Til the sun don’t shine again.

I’m just saying,
We all hear death’s whisper,
Shudder at the sudden chill,
Jump
When he taps the elbow,
And know when he is close at hand.

Whether rich, powerful, weak, or enslaved,
Doesn’t matter.
Doesn’t matter!
What we have here is
An obstacle,
A barrier,
Unavoidable.

For where there is life,
There is but one predictable end,

When the heart sputters
And breath is squeezed from collapsing lungs
When the eyes no longer focus,

And that day will come…

At that point,
It won’t really matter.
Whatever you’ve allowed yourself to believe,
It won’t make a difference.
What lies on the other side of that endless sleep,
It’s not going to change.
It won’t matter to anyone but you,
And the powers that be…

You will only be certain of one thing,

What’s done is done,
What’s said is said.
This life is nothing but over,
Once the doctor
Say yo‘ dead!



Michael S. True
8-11-13 last edit 10-13-13