John-Ward Leighton

Photograph: ©Copyright 2008 by John-Ward LeightonETERNAL MYSTERY

What is time in a place
where the average age is forever?
Did you come to a full stop
when your lights went out?
The rotting hulk you left behind
will testify there is no immortal or even
a long lasting figure of mankind.
I entertain these as yet
unanswerable questions
while watching
the beautiful young woman
clean the table at the condiment counter.
She gives this old man a brilliant smile
when told she is in a poem
and tells me where she would rather be.
All the thoughts of the mystery of souls
evaporate in the perfection of the encounter.
It doesn’t matter about the where or when
because there is the present to be gained.
No war in Iraq or Afghanistan
perhaps right now mankind could start again.
How many times can we choose to lose?
The discovery of working flush toilets
in the now proven myth of the disappeared Atlantis
predates John Crapper’s invention
by a mere three thousand years
give or take a hug and a kiss.
A cure for our greed and violence
and our eternal penance
to not foul our nest with hate
and foolish raucous petulance.
We too and all we are
will be yet another forgotten chapter
with only the echoes of our songs and verse
drifting lost in the immensity
of a place called infinity
far beyond the boundaries
of our egos and the known universe.
Lost in time and space
the foolish human race
will pass quicker than the blink of an eye
for all species only exist to die
not to be better or worse
but just to be.
Because there is more here than we can feel,
hear, taste, smell or see
only adding to the immense
eternal mystery.

©Copyright August 9, 2008 by John-Ward Leighton