Life in 2020 (a poem)
By Sean D
Wise men have asked what good is it a man to gain the whole world but lose his own soul…
Yet would one sacrifice everything he loved to attain some nebulous goal?
For what tragic fool seeking more LIFE would trade music, freedom, and song?
Would not seeking some right, at all inconceivable costs, wreak of more wrong?
So, by this same token, what purpose hath living in a world bereft of soul and all life?
Would one hope to arrest a wound bleeding by stabbing it through with a knife?
What does it mean sacrificing sacred means at the expense of temporal ends—
Especially when we find doing so causes such ends themselves to break and not bend?
Would we dare to defile ourselves in an attempt to keep clean—
Or smother mere babes in their cribs to ensure this cures their ill dreams?
Yet these things we freely ascribe when we blindly trade living for life!
We sacrifice everything we might love in an attempt to keep away strife …
Example?! All concerts deathly quiet; the bands are forbidden to play.
A meek and diffident fan base insist they stay silenced each day.
Restaurants are closed, and livelihoods by steely words of tyrants are wrecked …
Ordained up from on high by men who would never dare miss their government check.
Husbands, daughters, and sons oft turned away by nurses and medical staff, both
Insisting your right to share tears in proximity pales before hippocratic oath
Gyms, diners, theaters, mosques, and churches in so many townships sit bear
For your life’s protection it’s much, much to dangerous one go there.
Wise men might ask why do we sacrifice life on the alter of living…
But a better question might be: why do we take from others under the blinded guise of unselfish giving?
Is it man’s folly or bane that he conflates his ignorance with truth?
Is it his destiny, his plight, or his hubris to ignore inconvenient proof:
Proof that our short lives on this spinning orb are meant to live free
Free of fact-free hysteria, free of unthinking, free from those who would keep art, music, and real living from me.
Wise men—wise men hear true wisdom and would then define it as thus:
“Life isn’t life and life is not free unless it is LIVED and lived much.
Live life! Live to the very fullest extent.
Live your best life, as truly God meant
Huddled up, shuttered up, grasping for air
There’s breathing, sure, but there’s little life there
Life is found in memories shared; in the company of friends and family to care
Life is in LIVING; life is found day to day;
Life is free to be savored. Life isn’t given, so don’t freely give yours away!”