The Future Race

Plastic flowers strewn on lifeless graves,

An artificiality of grief

And memories enclosed within the tomb,

Forgotten as the falling of a leaf

When spring arrives in her dress of green

And song-filled breasts delight the fragrant air,

Returning life and hope-filled days begun,

Forgotten now the roots of our despair.

For we have lived and died a thousand times,

Our bones in ancient cities turned to dust,

A few remembered for the gifts they gave

Most like outworn instruments to rust

Or fade as sunlight piercing through a glass

Reduces all to drab or burns to ash

The record of our few and paltry deeds

And crumbs of joy suffered beneath the lash

Of time inexorably cruel and swift,

To bear the burden of our unknown fate

And hope mid the indifference of the stars

For joy among the sinecures of hate.

And in the end we are alone with God

Or disbelieving sole in darkness vast

And by our loneliness and doubt possessed

Face the riddle of our being's past.

Who can weigh sincerity of self

Or plumb the depths of greatness in the heart,

What measure to gauge the frailty of mind

Or courage and will that sets a life apart?

Only those who see behind the form

To view the bright lucidities of soul,

Seers and sages free of the great wheel,

Avatars whose godlike calm control

Can change the laws,reverse the course of life

From dissolution and destruction's pace,

Usher in the dawn of truth and light

Implant within ourselves the future race.