It can't tell a joke from a star, from a bridge, from weaving, from mining, from farming, from shipbuilding, or baking. When we're discussing our future plans it's got to get in the final word, off the topic. It doesn't even know the things directly tied to its trade: digging graves, assembling coffins, cleaning up after itself. So busy killing it's doing it badly, without system or skill. As if it were just learning on each of us. Triumphs aside how about the defeats, the missed blows and second tries. At times it lacks the strength to swat a fly out of thin air. To many a caterpillar it's lost a crawling race. These bulbs, pods, feelers, fins, tracheae, nuptial plumage and winter fur all testify to a backlog in its slothful work. Ill will does not suffice and even our help during wars and coups d'etat is too little so far. Hearts are pounding in eggs. The skeletons of infants are growing. Seeds are sprouting their first two leaves, and often even tall trees on the horizon. Whoever insists that it is omnipotent is himself living proof that omnipotent it's not. There is no life which couldn't be immortal, if only for a split second. Death always arrives that split second late. In vain it rattles the knob of the invisible door. However much one has gotten done, that much it cannot take away. Copyright © Leonard Kress. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...APOLLO by THOMAS HOLLEY CHIVERS WAR IS KIND: 23 by STEPHEN CRANE THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 2D SERIES: 2. JONATHAN TO JOHN by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL THE NEWLY WEDDED by WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED MR. MERRY'S LAMENT FOR LONG TOM by JOHN GARDINER CALKINS BRAINARD THE CARLES OF DYSART by ROBERT BURNS |