What is our maker, why does it put us here to die
What is Life if it must end,
What of our sense of beauty,
Of mesmeric minster air?
Or the way light bends on a summer afternoon,
The way the mourning dove croons,
If it must be taken all away,
When some of us must go and some of us to stay?

What is the love we feel,
For one another—deep, fearsome and real?
Why put it there for us to overcome,
Since the tension of love is not for some.
Or why take it into our hearts,
Only to wrench and stab us as we part?

Especially those who love only a few?
They open themselves to one or two—
Pour every part of their being into one soul,
Ignoring those who can't make us whole,
If only to watch it drain, or disappear as they depart?
Taking with them all our mind and heart?

Why do we expect an explanation
Of this cruel phenomenon,
The findings, trials and accommodation
That we build our lives upon?

And yet, with hope, however weak,
Stanching up our wavering hearts,
We tell ourselves we’ve found what we seek,
Something deeper than knowledge or art,
Until we are torn apart.

No religion can explain it.
Psychology tries and fails to name it.
We are creatures of mist and desire,
Of logic and deliberation,
Whose desperate brains whisper “Find a cure!”
And we wait only to have experts demur.

But deep within our harrowed souls,
We know that, for only a few,
Does this equation work,
And for the rest of us, it pales.
We plummet toward the hangman’s ****
And yet thank him for his gruesome work.

For our few bittersweet tales of life,
And that relief we feel comes at last,
Though we’ve no reason to believe it so.
We merely seek an end to the heartrending past,
Even if it just marks us as life slows.
And watches us as we go.

Does anyone care what happens to the lonely,
Or especially the aggrieved?
I doubt they do; they care about only
Themselves, their desires and taking leave.
Then they swiftly exit, and discard us—the bereaved.

Sharon Talbot
August 11, 2015