Life’s Minor Key
by Odin Roark

A dance of fugitive charm,
this constant modulation,
this incessant experience
shifting and sliding into
something distant for some,
an off-key episode for others,
yet for all, such is the spice of surprise
that so often makes it all live,
sometimes revealing itself through a terrifying,
yet, fascinating sublimity.

And still…

Frivolity,
the confused key signature of “new”
has become a seductive mantra,
even as it proves to be a superficial obsession
for an instant gratification populace,
ignorant to how transitory the sensation,
the forever flirting attachment
that never nurtures commitment,
is.

Such is the precarious world engulfing us,
where to know happiness
asks we embrace the oft time dissonance,
the challenges of tragedy so often feared,
yet forever the unavoidable encounter
essential for understanding the major key
of celebration’s concerto.