About Meaning

I look for meaning

In an instant
As each moment I stand myself up against
The tick-marks on the doorjamb my hand marking head-high
Looking down and up and measuring

In a day
I lay me down to sleep and did I
Advance any skill or craft or goal that will
Keep my soul ‘til tomorrow
That should I not wake would this day serve my final testament

In a week
House at 7:00
Glee at 7:00
Supper at 5:30 so Mom can get to church
Bones at 7:00
No date night this week
Football all day
Don’t go to church
The week a wheel with a busted spoke da bump da bump da bump da bump

In a month
Four and a half rows of seven blocks stacked up
Each block startlingly empty (mostly)
Maybe a meeting here or there maybe one Sunday gig
But mostly blank like next year’s month instead of one just past
Knock them down and start stacking again, mostly empty

In a year
Just last year I protested all years all time keeping
As tyrannical artificial circular medieval reductionist superstitious shallow infantile
Stomping my foot holding my breath protesting
Just one more game I promise a quick one
Before nap time

In a life
Astounded at fifty-one and what have I done
Just to sit and remember each year if I can and
See if I can account for each one’s landmarks and passing
Are they distinct or have they molded together inseparable and confounded
Like different colors of playdough hastily pushed into tubs and forgotten
Maybe I could pry them apart
All dry and crumbly glued

In the future
Will I be remembered in a year or a decade or a century or am I
Truly anonymous except to parents and children and siblings and wife
Who don’t seem to count as much as peers and
Public acclaim being satisfying justifying
One’s rep stepping down the block the kids oohing and ahhing and stepping back
More gratifying more lasting in a moment than lineage or descent

In eternity
That my life should reverberate down all ages and eons
Past all human history when every achievement has eroded
Become sediment and rock and cut to make pavers and bricks for
Alien streets and monuments that erode and crumble and blow dusty on fading solar wind
Even to the last dying spark of starlight when light itself
Becomes absolutely cold and still and dark
And yet my echo whispering in that searing void

No less than this is meaning.

Thank you for reading.