THE COMMON MAN

I feared that I could not relate
To all who read the thoughts I state.
So I began a search to understand
The mind of The Common Man.

Each I approached, I was to find
Had no common nor simple mind.
And after years of tireless search
I first perceived Mankind's lofty perch.

There is no Common Man nor Womankind.
Of mill workers, lawyers, doctors, clerks
And all others I could bring to mind
None fit the name, The Common Man.

With all our differences,
Cultures, colors and pace,
It seems that one and all
We're a most uncommon race.
****

WATCHING LOGS MELT IN A FIREPLACE

A fire in a fireplace is special.
The flames leap and prance.
Like imps or sprites
They run and dance.

As the sparks and cinders fall
They glow and smile
As one by one they increase
Their soft gray pile.

As the logs and branches burn
My mind wanders
And I begin to yearn
For friends and times now past.

But I watch the smoke
As it twists and curls
And I’m reminded that
We, as men, are like the fire.

Our flames leap and soar
And sometimes light the sky.
We spark and glow
And often nearly fly.

But too soon our time is past
And we quickly disperse,
Rising as smoke,
Becoming one with our Universe.

****

TWO OLDER LOVERS

I gazed upon a twilight shadow
Yet, I recognized
The youth and life still there
Glistening from her eyes.

We found ourselves alone
In a dimly lighted bed,
The marks of age and time,
Softened by the darkness,
Vanished from within each head.

I’d never searched in shadows,
Not to stem aging’s tide.
Yet now I see the benefit
Of all that night might hide.

As we lay alone together
Perhaps the darkness was a cure
For we ignored the youth we’d lost
And focused on our love, still pure.

The sags around our eyes
The wrinkles ‘round our lips
Vanished at the loving touch
From both our fingertips.

She kissed me with passion.
I caressed her still soft skin.
It just might be in her sweet arms
I found all I’d never been.

We both remember life
As it once had been
And wonder why the tides of time
Erode the lives of men.

Younger folks, you’ll never know
Until your time has passed
Which instant, day or moment
Might be your very last.

Even though long ago we both were young
It now seems our songs have scarce been sung
So why must we each pass away
And end this happy, yet too short play?
****

DEATH?

Why do our lives have to end
As our bodies fail to mend?
When our intellects continue
To learn and grow, but then we die,
When there’s so much more to know.

Often we ignore the passage of our days
Yet even if we chose to change our ways
Our will would not one gray hair erase,
So we still run, rather than to face,
The passing of our time.

If we could only see within
Would there be some inner glow
That we’d soon see will last forever?
If we could only determine if it’s so.

Is Death only the first release?
A new Beginning or an End?
Will we see all those we knew,
Or just those we were friendly to?

Or is it that existence merely ends,
Observed, duly noted, by our friends?

They’ll sing songs of Eternal Life,
Speak words of the End of Strife,
And feel contented, sure that we look on,
Happier Spirits, flying on
To some home in another, better place.

Silly platitudes,
Or sound thoughts to face?

Those remaining on, happier still,
Thinking that we assume some Angelic glow,
Suddenly wiser, all hidden things to know.

No more gray hair to try to hide,
No more wrinkles, no more pain,
No worries of the pounds we gain.

No more thought of how slow we are,
When once we ran so fast.
No worries of future successes,
All our failures now all past.

No more styles to keep up with,

No need for each new trend.
No new lovers,

No broken hearts to mend.

Is this thought of Everlasting Life
An ideal to follow,
Or just a way to deal with
All our daily strife?

Even as we think we reach our Earthly peak
We start to focus on all the things
We should really seek.

Death!

For me you hold no fear,
Because you see, you’re not yet here!
And when you come to seek me out,
I’ll not even know when we end our final bout.

The last laugh’s mine!
"Cause either, I’ll not know when you show,
Or else, off to rainbow colored skies
I’ll go!
****

THE FINAL HIKE

Don’t weep for me when I have gone;
Please don’t shed the tears.
I finally overcame Life’s troubles,
Escaped Life’s passing fears.

I’ll be hiking different trails then,
My search still going on;
Taking with me a few earthly things
Which still I’ll hold so dear.

My pad, my pack,
My staff, some ale;
For I’ll have left, perhaps,
To write this Universe’s tale.
****

SPIRITS IN THE WIND
There must be something about the howling of a wind that makes Man pensive. Tonight the wind is howling as it comes in gusts, from the North, off the Gulf of Mexico. A cloudy sky shrouds this part of the Caribbean.
I sit on the terrace of a condo in Cancun looking Southward across the lagoon and hear the wind howling and moaning. It seems the sound contains the echoes of the screams of all the billions of souls who’ve lived and died before me.
Probably Man has to suffer and to feel real despair before he can be close enough to this existence to begin to accept its failures, and to recognize the feelings of loneliness and isolation that must be at the depths and the core of each of our souls.
I have suffered in my lifetime, but no more so than any other man. These times away from my life help me to escape and to begin to examine the questions that I try to bury and hide through my currying about in the activities of life’s normal days.
To my left, running North to South, is a string of lights. Clustered here and there along the strip of sand the lights twinkle and glow, connected by more sparse beacons of light scattered in the gaps.
High rise hotels and pyramids of concrete house the sun seeking tourists, all here searching for the same sun and warmth that drew me to this spot.
The strip curves toward my right and the lights diminish until there’s only the evenly spaced string of yellow beads that marks the causeway to the mainland.
The mainland is a dark void. The only light there is the ever turning beacon that guides the jet aircraft to their landings. The airport here is new. Ten years a go this place was a sleepy village of two hundred souls, a strip of sand long since deserted to the moaning winds and the crashing waves.
An old temple sets nearby, a crumbling outpost, marking the Eastward boundary of a long vanished civilization. Apparently, this civilization rose in a splendor which equaled that of Rome or Egypt, perhaps at a time when they were still strong and in their prime, yet already weakening in their vanities; Its existence not dreamed of by those who guided those forerunners of our own civilization. Perhaps only aware of itself also, and not fathoming the network of Man which from time to time stretches across this Earth.
People settled here then and carves a life from the virgin jungles of Central America, much as the airport is now carved from them. Then their way of life was disrupted and changed forever by the influx of other men. Now the jungles thrive and push their way to the edge of the runway, easily visible in their primitive lushness to one flying into this area, stretching as a green carpet to the edge of infinity.
Then they stretched the same way, reaching across the miles to their horizon. Once these people died and their descendants moved away, the virulent jungle again took control of each temple, each courtyard, each house.
Their roads became mere earthen trails, traveled only by game and the occasional stubborn man, as he continued to haunt the footsteps of his ancestors.
As I usually do on such trips I observed those who live here. They are a small people, dark skinned, learning to be normal on an American way; not yet soured or perverted by exposure to waves of tourists. Friendly in most cases, with ready smiles; their lives in that part of the tourists growth curve where they are still convinced that tourists are good for their economies and their lives.
I see one sad faced man, however, who perhaps doubts the validity of his government’s claim that life is getting better. Etched into his face I saw only centuries of hardship and a dreary mode of living that’s impossible to escape.
Is there a danger of revolution here or activities designed to throw the yoke of a perceived oppression; or do the same forces that etched lines of worry and sadness into his great grand father’s face now shackle a spirit long since deceased and prevent any hope or thought of escape?
What happens to a country or its idividuals who band together to leave for a better life; or better yet, join forces to create a change in thought structure which leads them and their descendants to what we call progress and advancement?
It seems that in each culture there eventually happens that which is radical in nature, which causes changes inconceivable to the previous generation.
Is ti a gradual evolution? Does each society finally reach a point of prosperity wherein the new generation has time to think of ways to escape the past aggressions, solve the past injustices, to change all of the things which fettered their parents?
Or do things merely reach a point of desperation wherein men are forced to involuntarily shake off the chains which shackled their ancestors?
Probably both in various circumstances. The great advances come, however, when Man has time to think. Once Man is able to think and to conceptualize and to order his surroundings in his own mind, he needs the resources to bring his ideas to reality.
Perhaps hundreds of years ago a process occurred not far from here which caused a branch of Mankind to gain respect for those who conceptualized and achieved rational thought. Their thoughts were given strength by the edges of other men’s swords and they were given the chance to wield the strength of their thoughts.
How many budding civilizations have been possible and yet shriveled and died because no one was able to take the time to listen to rational thought?
The civilizations which flourished here eventually died. They reached the limits of their capabilities or their desires and now the descendants of Kings and Temple Priests wait on tables and manicure lawns and rive taxis for others whose civilizations will also ebb and fall.
Does the potentials till wait, camouflaged by the jungle growth, for future Kingdoms yet to rule the world? Why does the seeming flux of up and down, prosperity and famine, population and subsequent migration and desertion exist and occur? If so why will it stop? What purpose does it serve?
Why should one Inca virgin sacrificed in the Sun’s hot rays, or the man sacrificing his life for his fellow man on a battlefield, or the preacher teaching peace in the streets care or hope for the future?
Why not merely better life for each of us now and not care for the future, for those who come after us?
Perhaps Mankind is a sea of energy, with each of us bound by its unseen forces and swept by its invisible tides, each tiny contribution adding to the whole.
Perhaps each of us is born as a small drop of energy in the Universe. As we live we have the opportunity to expand our field of energy and thus having increased such to bring more back to the whole when we die.
Perhaps the moaning of the wind is indeed the Spirits of those long dead. Reminding us that life is short and our time too brief. As we live now, let us add to the Earth, before we, too, pass and become Spirits in the Wind.
****