I thought and thought and thought again.
I fought and fought and fought again.
Yet brain and brawn, muscle and neuron,
Proposed no response of significance,
To a question driven into human oblivescence:

How does one make a life out of mere existence?
How must we live?

We thought sheer expansion of our dominion,
Brought with it true fulfilment,
Alas, ask gallant Alexander for his opinion,
Poisoned he lay the slayer now slayed in disastrous denouement.

Or take for instance the mighty General Caesar,
Who, as a god by the populous was adored,
It was his insatiable appetite for ultimate power,
That onto his very own flesh rotated the sword.

These accounts from history succinctly show,
That in power, possession, decimation of the ‘foe’,
Prestige, honour and whereabouts nigh around.
The answer to our question can ne’er be found.

“But the pen is mightier than the sword!
A page clad with wisdom, can civilization goad.”
This I do hear you, dear reader, announce,
But will dexterous movements of the writer’s hand pronounce,
An answer to our question?
Or must we this method also denounce?

For if words were all we ever required,
To breathe life into a dying world;
Our concept of an ethereal being will backfire,
As an aspect of God into fallible human character is hurled.

Thus, with might we fought,
For what we thought was right,
Day and night we sought,
To locate the light.
But learning how to live proved to be,
A Herculean labour that protracted our misery.

Though disgruntled you may be now;
Dear reader, be cheery.
For, amidst the harrowing whirlwind of drear, we allow,
Combating Dubious the doubtful, is a worthy adversary;

Hope!

In an expectant advent humankind persists,
To look forward, notwithstanding our answer amiss.
In incessant hope we await and yearn,
For the day, on “How to live?”, we learn.

Granville D. Austin