Master of Minds

This is a poem which I dedicate to my son – only he will know why. I believe that all beings possess multiple minds which we try to master, manage, or manipulate. The “I” of which I speak is that which controls our multiple processors all of which have specific tasks that pull in various, sometimes conflicting, directions which we have to manage. As I reach an age where the span of years before me is far shorter than that which I have already experienced, it is reasonable, now and again, to wonder about life and death and whether there is anything in between.

Master of Minds

 

O, Master of Minds in this Vale of Tears

Are you surprised that Death did not call before?

The value vested in a span of years

Will never satisfy Morbidity more

Than the knowledge that our finite lives

Yield a lust for life that ever thrives

 

We exclude all thought of our own extinction

When young. When old we see the future clear!

The time will come to make distinction

Between present, past and what one holds dear

No duration will suffice to make amends

Nor to seek forgiveness of family and friends

 

An unknown beauty – beastly – beckons

That of which men rarely speak

We pay a bill that no calculator reckons

And for which no payment accountants seek

Yet we think our faculties will not diminish

Or that that which starts might never finish

 

With those we meet, we merge our minds

And with some we exchange our very substance

That consciousness which humanity binds

Gives meaning to our very existence

And thus, our ancestors thrive

In the minds of descendants who remain alive

 

Unmastered desires for procreation

Within our selfish genes exist

But there need be no insemination

To invent ideas that minds cannot resist

And that genetic urge which should be controlled

Cannot save our souls from growing old

 

So, commence the count of your own creation

 The list of things you will leave behind

Seek not applause – no temporary ovation

But set out your deeds that have helped mankind

No human lives who generates no disaster

Leave fond memories in the minds that you do not master