”against your will were you created,
against your will were you born,
against your will do you live,
against your will will you die, and
against your will will you stand in judgment before the
King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He.”

Rabbi Elazar HaKappar (C.170 - C.200 CE)
(Ha Kappar: the one who made and gave atonement)

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in these, the years of my erosive declination,
when the noble prize, time for introspection,
once was a chore of delaying, now no longer can be off-put,
the certainties of Elazar, offer guidable satisfactions

the nighttime review, resurrecting my life, the gaps,
the untaken actions, those dream-schemes speak loudest,
memories of what should have been, are a litany of what ifs,
prosecutorial accusations of crass wastage

against my will, the charges brought,
against my will, plead guiltily my innocence,
against my will, knowingly, time’s erasure judgment,
secures my fate, all the granular cells causal dissipation

my warped willingness to be a coward,
it was my meditative, to natural be the lesser man,
choosing the safety premise, the road most oft trod,
the addition of my meager totality, willing given

Even if all these land mine/roadblocks
and summary judgements are against my will,
willingly do I confess, in all innocence, my guilt,
“if it be my will”