Old Poem, New Image II

Epistle to Wanton Existence

from Wolf Gin Sonnets

Epistle to Wanton Existence

If it isn't bad enough,

we are asked to live;

not by any divine

instruction, but

compelled by simple law:

For as long as the heart might beat.

This tempo, this life rhythm,

frail inconstant melody, this

tatterdemalion biography

written into flesh and onto skin,

an epistle to our most innocent

judge of wanton existence.

We press on into the ether,

accelerating, expanding,

one moment brave unconquerable

mass, the next caught in the

vortex of decaying light. Survive!

Survive the context of a moment!

The momentum of our simple law

will carry us to sweet story's end,

bereft of meaning, no longer

sensing and nonsensical,

emphatically delivered from sight.

For it is this one assumption

that gives rise to hope:

In that we never remember

what went before this life,

we too shall find it just as easy

to forget it all when we expire.

Dear Wickedly Finite, Intrinsically

Benign; is there anything more

worthy of our attention than

the scattering of days upon this

fertile ground? Rejoice!

Fear is no leader! We are all

dictators of one absurd reality.

Comfort is no creed; vanity is

no solution to the puzzles of

petty abstraction. The Questions

of the Age are hypothetical by

birth, after all. Rejoice!

Shun not pain lest we forget

the fine counterpoint of beauty.

May the children of experience

survive the willing and care for

the drooping gait of their

ancestors. Such is gravity,

that rascal of all that lives

in spite of graven roosts.

Here lies bitter root where

sugar was mistaken for

sweetness. Here lies

the simple truth,

laughing asunder.