Poet, Justify Your Poverty!

"To thine own self be true."

Ill-advised,
Self-serving advice,
Which Polonius gave to Hamlet,
The Prince of Denmark,
Who promptly went mad!
But what of that?
Why not go mad,
When the world seeks to make you over,
And stuff you into a box?
(And it is into a box,
One way or another,
Where we all land in the end.)

We can't all burn out brightly,
In tragic magnificence,
Leaving glorious wreckage in our wake.
And we can't all be world changers,
Leaving behind a lasting impression,
An enduring impact,
An well-regarded legacy,
Commemorated by a nice plaque,
Or a larger-than-life statue,
And a short paragraph in a history book.

So what do we do with our time on Earth?
Grocery shopping?
Yardwork?
Career?
Laundry?
Taxes?

Perhaps,
Spending our days,
Obliviously tending our own little gardens,
Creating space,
Where,
With luck,
Our little flowers of creation can bloom,
Is the true goal of life.
Shutting our ears to dismissive,
Negative thoughts and criticisms.
To remind ourselves of our own vision,
Our own path.
For no one but ourselves knows the way,
Or the why,
Or the passion of our souls.
No one else can tell us how to live.
We all have our own choices to make,
While also remembering,
(And this is key),
To make those choices kindly.

Let the acquirers,
The obtainers and gainers,
The fame hounds,
Have their berth.
They will tell you,
Smugly,
To make more of your life,
As they stumble drunkenly,
Self-satisifed with power,
In comfort,
With hollow madness,
To the grave.
(Because,
Let us be frank,
That is the destiny for one and all.)

But what better endeavour than to make?
Not profits,
Or widgets,
Or ends
But anything that reflects the good,
The love,
The shared experience of this worldly,
And brief,
Lifetime.

We must occasionally ponder,
In my opinion,
The purpose of this life.
It must be different for each and all,
And yet,
In the end,
Not so different at all.
For we will,
One day,
Walk alone,
Naked,
Burdened by nothing but our souls,
Through the final portal.

What lies beyond?
That is a good question,
(Which Shakespeare explored already),
But the answer does not matter,
Not nearly as much,
As the answer to the first question,
What to do?

What to do?

I choose,
Perhaps misguidedly,
To spend my time filling up the world,
Not with monuments to myself,
But with goodness.

Should I not seek to follow my own path?
If not,
Then whose path should I follow?
Why stay in line?
Stack my meager share of gold,
To what end?

Just an end?

What you gain in this life,
It surely won't matter in the next,
If,
Indeed,
There may be a next.

Now is all we've got,
And it is worth more than gold.
Spend it wisely.
Share it kindly.
Plant good things.
Spread the seeds of your own joy.
That can't be wrong.

It takes courage then,
To stand and expose your heart,
Your soul,
Your very essence.
The world is full of unkind tongues,
Wagging,
Lashing at the puny,
The small and unafraid.
We are easy prey,
Lovely targets.

We'll all be judged,
On our faults and foibles,
Our mistakes and failures,
Our success,
Or lack thereof.
That is out of our control.
I would,
Given a choice,
Choose to be judged by my contributions,
No matter how insignificant,
To the beautification,
Of my small patch of the universe.

4-12-19