And So Die

Everything that's born will someday die

Whether from some external force or power

Or simply reaching its own final hour

When life exhausts, and spirit bids goodbye.

This death is sure; though we may reason why,

Rail endless against it, fight, or cower

In sullen fear within some hidden bower

We cannot change it. Yet we also lie

If we pretend that all things die the same.

The surety of death is no excuse

For making life less than it could have been.

Death promises us nothing but the name:

The quality of dying lies in use

And letting death come badly is the sin.

May Sicken

 Another cough, another cough, another;

It seems as if the whole world were a cough.

And hardly anyone bothers to smother

Their cough within an elbow; they go off

As if their illness couldn't pass by air.

Yet we know better, or we should by now;

We have a common duty, common care.

If there's a way--and yes, we all know how--

You shouldn't spread your sickness to the crowd.

And yet how soon we all forget the way;

How quickly what was once proclaimed out loud

Becomes a whisper, hidden from the day:

Concern for others, once a common cause

Is now considered overreach of laws.

The Appetite

Growth provides momentum all its own

For justifying growth; we grow to grow

And do not cease once we are fully grown,

Metastizing ever onwards so

That we can say we grew. No growth can know

A limit: if you simply stay, you cease

To matter. Nor can growing even slow.

There is no space for any kind of peace,

We only know the power of increase.

Economies of scale, we are assured

Are (to our good) the only axle-grease

And there is nothing that cannot be cured

By growing, growing, growing. It's the answer

For everything. Except, of course, for cancer.

That, Surfeiting

You'll win so much, he said, that you will beg

To lose again. You'll be so sick of winning

That you'd give up your arm--maybe your leg--

To try to bring things back to the beginning.

Well, I'm not sure that this is winning, truly:

Unless you move the goalposts off the field.

I find the government acting so cruelly

Is losing; with the power states can wield

Comes expectation of a common good,

A common benefit, a commonwealth

That works towards what it should, not what it could,

In search of joint prosperity and health.

To use that power for a selfish win

Is not a victory. It is a sin.