Why What Reason Have I
Often times I wonder if I may have missed
a greater calling or purpose in my life.
As a young man I was frivolous and non-sensical
when it came to asking the most important questions:
“Why am I here? For that matter,
why is everyone and everything in this universe
here at all?” I was too busy being
childish and simple-minded, expecting this world
to be my own windfall, forever at my beckon call.
And thus, I took to excursions across the seas
in search of adventures and answers compelling me
to continue moving on ahead
wherever the winds and captivating currents led.
Like Odysseus on the prowl for the golden fleece
I found myself wandering
around the atmosphere seeking
the mysterious path of least resistance
to the secrets of happiness and peace,
as my journey could not, would not cease.
Warm Pacific winds and tides took me far and wide
in search of the Buddha in China, Thailand, and Japan
and other island nations whose languages and customs
I forsook to understand.
In later days I made my way
through the Gates of Hercules into the Aegean Sea
immersed and enthralled,
in a world bathed in the shadows of fading history.
From the Vatican in Rome where Michelangelo’s
statue of “The Pieta” and pristine paintings stood
near Raphael’s “School of Athens” and St. Peter’s buried bones
to a place in Greece on the isle of Crete, Knossos,
where King Minos and the Minotaur were born,
Daedalus, Icarus, and Europa once roamed, their ghosts
still haunting that fabled island, hearth, and home.
I was mesmerized and thought I’d died there,
near the shores of the Peloponnesian wars
(perhaps I had but forgot what for).
Years later still my mind was filled
with books from “The Great Library,” The Serapeum,
Alexandria by the shore,
“Umbilicus of the world,” said they
where Cleopatra drank from the poison asp
and Mark Anthony died by the sword.
While a few more miles up the River Nile
in the Valleys of the Kings and Queens,
where Pharaohs became Osiris, Horus
in temples, tombs, and monolithic monument scenes…
some still standing majestically, whispering,
not unlike me: “Why?” What reason have I,
to live, breath, talk, surmise or query who I am?
What eyes to see, what mind to dream,
to laugh, to love, to plan.
To stand on those far distant realms
and look up at the stars,
whose light’s been burning eons long
traveling through cold, dark, distant nights.
Until long last they find their path
into yonder young, wild eyes sublime
telling me that everything I see
is made freely by design and thus, Devine.
Herein, I surrender, my purpose rendered,
to praise the Mighty Maker
for all the ruins, places, friends, and faces,
I have seen and still remember.
To raise the Unmade Maker to His rightful place
in time…eternal beyond imagining
all the tales and travels yet unraveled,
in the menagerie and mystery
of one fortuitous, grateful man and mind.
Copyright ©
Terrell Martin
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