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On Life and Death( Inspired by the Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam)

Jul 21 2008 | Views 731 | Comments (68)

I wish I knew the secret of life and death ! It is hidden as we go through life's joys and sorrow... Expand

I wish I knew the secret of life and death !
It is hidden as we go through life's joys and sorrows
It is available to all, to speculate and divine
But it is not deciphered, by the living
Until life takes them into that abyss
From which they return no more
Do they then find out the meaning of both?
The ever inter-twined, physical existence and after life ?
When they enter that gate of no return ?
Or does existence end, in a simple negation ?
An inexorable but simple shift from being to non being?

I wish I knew the secret of life and death !
As, it will give me the reason for living
As both are forever linked, as matter is to anti matter ?
Fraternal twins quite unlike, one seen and one imagined
By humankind, since the beginning of time
That has speculated on after-life, as life's extension
The frail human hope that there must be something?
Beyond these mortal coils, a desperate cutching at straws ?
A faith eternal, in the indivisible and eternal soul ?

I wish I knew the secret of life and death !
As it will help me decide on tying loose ends
On making peace with the living
On giving that last hug, or that last kiss
And tell loved one's of heartfelt tenderness
Of deep belonging, transcending death, as we discern it
Does love transcend death into the beyond that we know not?
Can the beloved feel her lover's call over lifetime's parting ?
Can she feel his breath and feel his touch, beyond death's door ?

I think I know the eternal secret of life and death !
That life is a happenstance that is beyond our ken
And death is the inevitable and consequent result of life
As the shadow follows the physical form
And as the sun follows the night and the moon the day
It is not for us to know or to fully comprehend
As we are tiny specks in the life cycle of existence
The repetitive cosmic play of birth and death
It is an eternal conceit that man can divine the reason
Of life's being and death's onrushing certainty

Man is like a paper boat tossing and turning in a typhoon
Who does the boat question, the storm or the ocean ?
It is for man to accept his insignificance, to build a niche?
That gives a comfortable perch to navigate the stormy seas
But, that comfort, is unreal, it is imaginations's figment
That will be swept away , to join the stuff of fleeting memories
That will dwell on the beloved, passing a moment or two
And then be overcome by the pushes and pulls, of reality
So seize the day, make it yours, specially yours alone !
For tomorrow might not be yours to enjoy and share
As you might be just a memory wafting in the eternal breeze
As Old Khayyam says Sans Wine,Sans Song and Sans Everything

ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
     Before we too into the Dust descend;
   Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie 
     Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and--sans End!

Fitzgerald's Translation of the Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam