A Short Breath

What is life, but a speck, coloring the black canvass of the universe?
How can it gain purpose, be more than a forgotten breath?
Is life just a wisp of hope? Stuck here in the land of the dead?
Lights fade and flicker; and stars go out; disappear,
Men die, and women scream in hunger, as children cry out in fear.
Is that the way of this world? Cold and bitterness?
Is there no mercy for those who are broken in their grief and death?
Wars rage and dissipate, and some do not shed a tear,
Not finding it possible to grant life to what should be held dear.
And the sun watches on, just another star in the sky,
Another speck like life, or death, that’s just happening by.
Nothing is held sacred, nothing given hope,
The only thing that’s cherished is what is yet to be known,
And when the universe ceases to hold its mysteries,
What happens to the innocents? Or even to you and me?
We sit here in our sheltered worlds, watching, waiting, staring,
For something that will never come, a rescue from our warring.
And how is it solved? All life is solved with death.
There is no reversal, for death is infinite and definite
It has no beginning or end, just a path, a chosen road,
And the people that it carries are just its chosen load.
A glance up at the sky will show you just how fragile we are,
So many, vast and majestic, and a dying shooting star.
Our wishes are not heard, as it crashes to its demise,
And I wonder whose folly it was to dream, was it yours or mine?
We crawl like ants in our colonies, happy with our routine,
But we are more like termites, so blind that we can’t see.
The animals we were made to care for fall around our very feet,
We butcher them and slaughter, more for sport than for meat,
And in it all we lose the very being that we held,
So that when we die we do not live forever but burn in hell.
We turn away from what grants us life, content with just a sip
A small breath, a silent whisper, a faint gust of the wind.
The thought of life beyond causes not a thought of dread,
Instead, it’s thought we are invincible, and never can be dead.
How to tell you otherwise? It’s not a riddle or a game,
Nothing that we do here will live beyond our name.
When we are dead and buried, our loved ones dead and gone,
Nothing will record us, not even a favorite song,
For legends fade with time, and records turn to dust,
And promises die with lies, and betrayal silences trust
No one keeps their honor, and no one shares their disgrace
Instead they live alone here, unfulfilled, to save face.
And as I watch the sky above me, I wonder if it’s worth it all,
The price for learning how to fly; for learning not to fall.
Words become less than paper, love less than sand
And people die for glory, honor, and their land.
And in the end its nothing, but a grain in the hourglass of time,
A wave lost in the sea, a grape fallen from the vine
We are nothing here, except greed, death, and destruction.
We’ve replaced what mattered with the plague of corruption.
I cannot say I’m happy, angry, bitter, or upset,
However I can say that our race is one bent on regret,
Even our life is worth less to earth than a star,
None will admit it, but on the sky it’s a written scar.
The dwarfs, giants, and even nebulas destroy with their last breath
But we’ve done that while living, in death there is none left
The mother earth would not care if we all lived or died,
And sadly enough, the rain would be all that cried,
Only our creator, who may one day call us home,
Would care if all of us were suddenly swept off our earthen throne.
It’s not all quite meaningless, unless of course you make it,
By not sharing all your joys, and by harboring your anger.
We are naught but roses trampled on the ground,
Our thorns stripped, our weakness bared, only fear to be found
Yet we were meant to love each other, to always know and care
And measured against that, even the universe could not compare.
We may not be more than a breath, a blink, or a sigh
But we are more than death, be it only while our lives are passing by

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