A nurse’s lamp lights a Nightingale throng,
As an age’d ***** sings the evening song,
From life’s stamp at birth belong,
With ending near, constrained by wrong,
Holds love dear while time waits long.

Fears night’s dark, but fears not the sea,
Stray dogs bark at the Mockingbird’s plea,
As angels hark, tears flow free,
And as the gathered flock nod and weep
Such keys unlock his endless sleep

The sweet silver lark of his golden reign,
‘Twas but a soulless ark with a mimic’s stain,
A moment’s search and a second to pray,
Evolution’s church had forgot the way,
“Solutions” besmirch not explain away.

Night to day and day so bright,
There he lay in heaven’s sight,
With years dismay he fought his plight,
As emotions flicker the soldier’s rite,
To light a candle in Crimea’s night

And to the next and so it goes,
In the nurse’s debt, they won’t impose,
Yet more still, yet more come
For those who ****, it is the sum
And with God’s will, see the morning sun…

No gods, no fate,
not even yielding to chance
To live this one life
in full acceptance:

This will only happen once!

A stubborn strength
born of a conviction
That there is no soul
in need of absolution

That life is not made meaningful
by abstract metaphysical contortions
in favor of a jealous,
angry, cruel
deity
Purportedly in love with creation

Such is the choice of the humanist
in staunch opposition
to the zealot, the spiritualist
To stand on one's own feet
Acknowledging the grand mystery
Not willing to submit.