My thoughts turn wondering back to

my tiny conception, when all that

would be of me existed in this union

of egg and sperm and my humanity

as a male was decided for me and

was activated in moving towards the

point of writing this existential poem

and contemplating my lost beginning,

my birth, the growth, the life that unfolded

and the choices that perhaps were not really

choice at all in the hidden order of things.

 

One act of pleasure and connection led to

this poem, which itself is a secret act of

passion and giving birth to a thought that

has been thought countless times across aeons of

sex and conception and growing up to realise

the truth of your being vulnerable in the world.

 

And then, as I write this poem (as an older man,

greying, sometimes wise, often the fool who wants

this world to be better ever if it is cursed),

my mind shifts to my demise, the great inevitably

that lays its slight hand across all of us in turn.

 

My consciousness turns to this time when my mind

and body will be laid aside and cast to the universe,

and it will be as if egg and sperm had never met and

my life and this poem will drift away into nothingness,

which is not our choice in this life with only one certainty,

unless heaven exists and god is on his throne laughing

at me, pointing with his crooked finger and saying,

I told you so, this is the truth, it is all absurd.

 

6/6/2022