Vanity
Vanity
A poem about vanity in life inspired by Ancient Greek Wisdom
As I wake up abruptly every single dawn
With my body still asleep on futility’s lawn
My spirit needs a fiery, enervating quick jolt
To nail down my awareness with God’s divine bolt
And as the day’s continuity progresses slowly
My frail mind transforms my soul silently
To seek our Father’s love and compassion
And His heavenly treasure and full passion
Oh! supreme vanity, goddess of futility
You mark our short life most eloquently
As you guide us with your values and premises
To consider all matters without the goal of destiny
For without God’s divine purpose and infinity
All life ends up in the turbulent waterways of vanity
Waiting, with no end, for the pleasure of happiness
Disregarding all elements of ethics and human wellness
Oh! Greatest vanity of glorious vanities
How weak you make the old and the wise
How you bond us all well with divine fate
How silly you make men who think they are great
Dearest God, bless us to be, in our life, mighty
So that we express our goodness to all needy
For without Your words we are all bereft totally
Waiting our final turn in the valley of dire mortality
Taking into deep consideration the following ancient Greek sayings:
1. By Aristotle: ‘Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind’.
2. By Plato: ‘Eternal time is the only truth while what happens in our world are icons of vanity of our emotions’.
3. By Empedocles: ‘You must plunge beneath your crowded thoughts and calmly contemplate the higher realities with pure, focused attention. If you do this, a state of inspired serenity will remain with you throughout your life, shaping your character and benefiting you in so many ways. But if you direct your attention instead to the trivial things most people obsess about, the silly nonsense that dulls their minds, you’ll just acquire more objects which you’ll only lose anyway’.
Copyright © John Kyriazoglou | Year Posted 2019
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