VIII.
“We are born”
We are born on an earth, granted
not of our choosing, but nonetheless
endowed
with a will, if for it we but reach.
Though itself merely
an atom
of the universe’s atom
it is our fixed
common ground
whereby we choose to assert our say,
however momentarily,
amidst the greater flux of things,
that we shall be.
This morning the smell
of incipient fall
the crispness of October
enters
the father’s bedroom through his open
window.
His voice is low
and soft as though
the world held no foreboding.
Your first problem
is whether to believe in Him,
an Almighty Creator.
How can you be sure
of His purported love
when He left you to delve
beneath the frozen waste of pain
on your own?
But it is wiser to fear for other souls
more than you fear for your own.
That is a wrong way to live,
you must learn to forgive him.
What you don’t understand doesn’t
matter.
If it’s all in your head how does it differ?
Perhaps that yours came early is good,
some of us need only survive childhood.
And your virtues, reflection, enthusiasm,
what do you have to show for them?
There is no such thing as a human
without a sense for transcendence—
truth beyond our physical ken.
…
Andrew Tye is from a town named Temple. He believes all humans are poets. He performs his forthcoming book My Son as a one-man show in NYC. He aims to share the book and the show with national audiences.