The Eternal Quest

Searching for Meaning

 

What will I leave, when I stagger off this mortal coil?

Only a fleeting memory, my slate too quickly wiped clean,

Forgotten among the uncountable numbers who have passed

This way before and after, merely a cipher lost in a number,

Immeasurable and incomprehensible, one more lost sheep

In a herd of such vast size, I am only one among the many.

 

Like so many others, I will leave behind no lasting mark

On History, no great works that recall my name clearly

To generations of oncoming students and scholars seeking

To understand my reasons or the inspirations that drove

Me to stand out in the crowd; alas, will all I have ever done

Result in nothing more than a few scattered recollections?

 

One day, the world will turn without me, continuing on its course

As if I had never been, the sun still shining merrily in the sky,

The wind whistling through the cracks I once peered curiously

Into, seeking answers or amusements to suit my own mind’s pleasure,

Following the path my footsteps had long, long ago set me on,

A path that lead me hither and yon, until I reached this place.

 

Now I have set in motion two lives that will carry on from here,

Taking from me what they have absorbed, knowingly, as well as

That which the mystery of life has decided for them to take,

As they each make their own way, along their own paths, until

Some future time when they pass the mantle on to some new

Charges, to carry on who we were, into what will inevitably be.

 

Standing along side the great mother-road of life, from babies

To geezers, I look back at those who brought me here, and peer

Blindly ahead at where our vein of humanity will go from here,

Wondering at the meaning of it all, posing the great questions

We all ponder, no doubt futilely, as the world blithely continues on,

Spinning madly around the sun, ticking off the moments of eternity.