Epic Thoughts: The Best Of

We have often asked why some space exists,
Why it permits the countless to briefly persist
On Mother Earth, nourished under Father Sky—
All of those finite sparks that light and die.

There were those who endlessly debated,
Whether to live in their virtuals unabated,
Or to press forwards and outwards, of delirium,
To seek out new localities in the mysterium;
But, the pauses of the heavy particles continued,
And so there was nowhere to go for the retinued.

It was much simpler once, in those days of old,
When we thought that universes didn’t go cold,
But that they expanded and collapsed,
Still destroying all, yet ever giving more to last.

And, well before that, once upon a storied time,
We simply made it all up, with tales and rhyme,
In place of any physical observations,
Or of all our revealing experimentations.
…

It is a beauty and a brilliance
Flashing up in its destructance;
For, everything isn’t here to stay its “best”;
It’s merely there to die in its sublimeness.

Like slow fires making their brands, it breeds;
Yet, ever consumes and moves on, as more it feeds,
Then spreads forth anew, this unpurposed dispersion,
An inexorable emergence with little reversion,
Ever becoming of its glorious excursions
Through the change that patient time restrains,
And feasting upon the glorious decayed remains,
In its progressive march through losses for gains.
…

With flora mystical and magical,
Eden’s botanical garden was blest,
So Eve, taking more than just the Apple,
Plucked off the loveliest of the best.

Thus it’s to Eve that we must give our thanks
For Earth’s variety of fruits and plants,
For when she was out of Paradise thrown,
She stole all the flowers we’ve ever known.

Therewith, through sensuous beauty and grace,
Eve with Adam brought forth the human race,
But our world would never have come to be,
Had not GOD allowed them HIS mystery,

For when they were banished from HIS bosom,
Eve saw more than just the Apple Blossom,
And took, on her way through Eden’s bowers,
Many wondrous plants and fruitful flowers.

Mighty GOD, upon seeing this great theft,
At first was angered, but soon smiled and wept,
For human nature was made in HIS name—
So HE had no one but HIMSELF to blame!

But still HE made ready HIS thunderbolt,
As HIS Old Testament wrath cast its vote
To end this experiment gone so wrong—
And then HE felt the joy of life’s new song.

Eve had all the plants that she could carry—
GOD in HIS wisdom grew uncontrary.
Out of Eden she waved the flowered wands,
The seeds spilling upon the barren lands.

GOD held the lightning bolt already lit,
No longer knowing what to do with it,
So HE threw it into the heart of Hell,
Forming of it a place where all was well.

Thus the world from molten fire had birth,
As Hell faded and was turned into Earth.
This HE gave to Adam and Eve with love,
For them and theirs to make a Heaven of.

From HIS bolt grew the Hawthorn and Bluebell,
And HE be damned, for Eve stole these as well!
So HE laughed and pretended not to see,
Retreating into eternity.

“So be it,” HE said, when time was young,
“That such is the life MY design has wrung,
For in their souls some part of ME has sprung—
So let them enjoy all the songs I’ve sung.

“Life was much too easy in Paradise,
And lacked therefore of any real meaning,
For without the lows there can be no highs—
All that remains is a dull flat feeling!

“There’s no Devil to blame for their great zest—
This mix of good and ‘bad’ makes them best!
The human nature that lets them survive,
Also makes them feel very much alive.

“That same beastful soul that makes them glad
Does also make them seem a little bad.
If only I could strip the wrong from right,
But I cannot have the day without the night!”

So it was that with fertile delight Eve
Seeded the lifeless Earth for us to receive.
Though many flowers she had to leave behind,
These we have from the Mother of Mankind:
…