My long life reaches an imminent close;
There’s no escape – that’s just the way it goes.
I hope to go gentle, futile to rage.
Religion has no power to engage
So end of life is waiting with no cure,
And for me the next act remains obscure;
I know I’m here only because I’m here –
The rest imponderable:
Why just now in infinite time and space
I appear then disappear without trace?
I’m subject to cosmic indifference -
A nothing speck of no significance.
From where did I emerge, where will I go?
No answers have been forthcoming, and so
I’ll forget this quest, persist with the rest
Of this life as I find it.
Optimistic Speculative Postscript:
However surely there is a good chance
Life everywhere exists in abundance;
I have a feeling, it’s perhaps empty,
I’ll pop up again, the chances plenty.
If there is another start would there be
A distant universe where I’d be free?
A place not too near, an advance on here;
Though the ‘I’ that’s me won’t know…
But Then Again –
What’s that if not a religion started -
A bid to be somewhere when departed.
Did my subconscious refuse to admit
Lack of grounds for a meaningful exit,
Could not cope with the prospect of the void,
Imagination in free fall deployed
To silence the fear just hovering near -
I also susceptible?
Well reincarnation allows some clout
For all those plagued with all manner of doubt;
Likely a deity will do as well:
Temple, Church, judgment and heaven or hell.
For those who must have a faith to survive
Belief enables peace, a chance to thrive,
Endorses their need to live, love and breed
And not face meaninglessness.
So where am I now? I made an attempt
To find an argument which might preempt
A religious solution causing strife
For those at ease without an afterlife.
An alternate insight at my third verse
Rendered my arguments weakened and worse:
A challenge ‘why’ needed to rectify
that, sends me back to the start……..which is good.