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