Why


What is death but a question oft pondered
Where do we go and will we meet again
What about the things I know
What about the things I love

We ask these questions through all ages
A search not for answers but control
Death the greatest unknown, beautifully so
It's unpredictability displays true equality

The question properly pondered rather
Is the question of what is life truly
Divinely purposed or a great accident
You are here, I am here and we are here
 
I see sadness in great wealth and blight
I see happiness in health and terrible sickness
I see kindness and love in peace and war
Perhaps, we are as unpredictable as death

What is life I ask the blank page before me
The answer seems clear in my minds eye
To balance the you, the we and the I
While only seeking change from me

To give freely is not necessarily charity
To give from money or some living trust
But give rather the heart in word and deed
Time and time again without expectation

To change without expecting the change
To freely give the greatest gift of time
And waste it away in a worldly sense
For benefit of the stupid, meek and dumb
 
Millionaires stack their homes and cars
Planes and egos all designed to separate
A billion without a possession of value
Hide their faces in shame to separate

Neither realizing they play the same game
Neither realizing they go the same way
A final beat a final breath and then goodbye
A countdown has begun and no one prevails

A half life to being completely forgotten
First slow, then quick and then completely
The game is over, for poor and wealthy alike
No influence or opinion of any consequence

So what is life one must ask once more
To satisfy egos unquenchable inferno
Or greed's great edifices to separation
Prides great walls against reconciliation

Why is it that death creates the confusion
Fighting over who is right and who is wrong
Liberties taken liberally on what comes next 
When it is life itself that is the true puzzle

So what is life I ask myself again and again
Unfortunately I find myself unqualified
Is it simply to live the game of life well
Or rather to live for a death that is to come

What I seem to know from those I have lost
It is not the fame or fortune often missed
But rather the connection lost in their passing
The longing to go back and feel it once more

To carry a life of value to me in my heart
And know those memories, end with me
Yet carry them still as priceless treasures
The truth, I keep safe, the soon forgotten

Perhaps this is the greatest trick of them all
To lure all to a forest without sight of a tree
To accumulate frantically at a pitiful pace
That which has no lasting meaning or value

Perhaps if I may be so bold as to implore
That life's very beauty is found in it's echo
The greatness from those we value most
Echoing their life in the deeds of another

What is death a question oft pondered
Is akin to asking the significance of a sunset
A special final glow that fades as many before
A curtain call, a final act, welcoming the stars
~ Nicholas Campos 2024

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