The Nature of Things ( a guest blog by Kolea)

As I gaze upon your lovely youthful features my darling

Your locks billowing about your shoulders with the morning breeze

It’s hard to remember the reality of such a special thing

I’d like to capture this moment and store it forever in some deep freeze.

But if I try to hold on to this blinding unreality I see

Repeatedly tormented by life’s storms will I forever be

Not using the sensibilities that fate has thrust upon me

Among the uncounted billions chained for life, a chance to be free.

Beneath the skin with the sheen of milky white sheet of silk

Lies muscle, bone, glands and blood coursing through uncounted veins

Cells being lost and created in myriad droves of every conceivable ilk

Not a single instant are you the same from that which it sustains.

In time the ravages of nature’s changes will certainly take its toll

When free radicals erase those cells causing young to become old

Limp and ragged we drag ourselves toward the grave eventually

Giving up all we own and releasing our hold very slowly, ever reluctantly.

There’s no fun in doing this we object, why wasn’t there a warning

White hairs did sneak in one by one, I didn’t see the sagging coming

The aches and pains were dealt with nicely with exercise and frequent hugs

Why, it’s as if they stopping the aging in its tracks, the wonders of modern drugs.

But time never quits, this cruel most relentless foe of all

Giving no quarter to king or pauper, slaying the mightiest and the small

Entire civilizations are its grist, they’re ground to dust eventually

So what’s one puny body like you, just because you protest so vehemently.

You prance your prance and dance your dance in eyes wide open slumber

Together with those others locked in step, growing without number

Those uncountable, innumerable, forgotten universes that existed in time without span

If you like for as long as that you can do this again and again.

Those cells of which we’re made we know are mostly vacant space

Those molecules and smaller atoms themselves are not the end of the race

Smaller and smaller they find, is each constituent part

Neutrinos and quarks reduced to vibrating strings, not even solid at heart.

Mere waves they say eventually, can all things visible be redefined

Solid matter is an antiquated idea, as knowledge becomes ever more refined

Mathematical equations may even define, who knows, everything that ever existed

Someday may be used to create anything, may not be overstated.

One day you may be captured, in a Hamiltonian or Schroedinger-like equation

They may someday reproduce you or me, maybe even our personality summation

Can anything possibly reproduce our wit and charm, no matter what the course

What a horrible thing to contemplate, coupling your keen intellect with the body of a

horse. Or possibly vice versa.

They say the Divine’s a mathematician, we can easily see why that’s so

There’s no knot beyond His ken and no solution beyond His know

There’s some things we ought to leave, in His domain to properly solve

Some things are just too complex for mere mortals, these things we can’t resolve.

There’s no limit to the how of things it seems, that humans can eventually solve

The mind of man has yet to show, the limit of its reaching

It’s possible that man can stretch it out, we’ve just started to evolve

But can we know Reality, the goal of all great teaching.

All our lives are dissipated in vain on frivolous pursuits to spend

Not aware not even in dreams of this gift from no precept

Jerked by passions left and right, attracted and distracted without end

Till Death appears without forewarning, his invitation a “must accept”.

How shall we greet, what manner meet, this Yama of the night

Patience is his long suit, he’s seen it all, all that put up the valiant fight

“It’s futile” he yawns, “don’t even try”, neither self nor others abuse

“No matter what you say or do, you know of course you’ll lose”, ho hum.

The Upanishads say, there’s only one that slipped his noose, this Nachiketa fellow

More clever than all that came before, he somehow figured it out

Of all the million billions that ever spun the wheel

He’s one of few to ever prove he wasn’t merely a lout.

Face to face with the King of Death, he eyed that mighty girth

This clever little fellow showed us all what we should aim for most dear

Don’t ask of Yama for wealth or pleasure, nor anything of common worth

Don’t waste your time or thought in anxious ways, always in fret or fear.

One thing only above the rest, will bestow some peace of mind

No matter who you’ll leave all behind, whether you’re strong or weak

Try starting with some effort to tread the path that Solomon did find

And keep in mind forever more, That alone is worth the seek.

Why seek the jewel you may rightly ask, seemingly with no form or substance

Why strive to grasp the ephemeral thought, which no eye can possibly see

The answer can only follow the question, and if the question be

He will guard and guide the honest pilgrim, who strives to really be free.

Photo by Frozenstardust

- Kolea