Sunday, November 21, 2010

Poetry Bus Rides in the Ice Age


Our Poetry Bus driver this week, Enchanted Oak, has charged us with this assignment:

"This week I provide the prompt for the world-famous Poetry Bus, created by the world’s most famous blogger, Totalfeckineejit. For bus tickets this week, I have decided to require…

Poems that address your existence on this earth. Good, bad, or indifferent, tell us something, anything, about your life here."

I changed my ticket slightly and wrote about existence in general. I revamped a poem I wrote about 10 years ago.

I've long ago stopped wondering about my existence and instead wonder, if having had the opportunity to exist, will I be remembered when I am gone. Or rather, will I have done something in life to deserve being remembered.

Ice Age


While reflecting upon the meaning

Of our existence

As countless others have before me

I’ve determined the enlightened

Who find purpose in our being

Are just as right

As those naysayers who do not

And the stoics who walk the median

Cloaked neither in hope nor in despair

For we are but faint tracings in the snow

That drift in time and melt away

And disappear into the warmth of an endless spring

Some of us, however, leave footsteps as we pass

That are firm enough to endure

Beyond their season

Pressed solid by the weight of goodness

And fixed deep within the earth

To become the path of others


Cynthia Ann Conciatu


Stop by Enchanted Oak for more existential musings!

7 comments:

Kat Mortensen said...

I'll be the first to say (for there will be others, surely):
These lines: "For we are but faint tracings in the snow

That drift in time and melt away"

Gorgeous!

Kat

Helen said...

Your poem is timeless ... and lovely.

Enchanted Oak said...

I want my footprints to be "pressed solid by the weight of goodness" as opposed to melting, leaving no traces. Thank you for this thoughtful take on the prompt.

Dick Jones said...

An elegant and wise meditation on things existential. And what Kat said about the snow image!

Rachel Fox said...

Interesting link to the last Bus task too! Paths everywhere!
x

Louise said...

I think this is one of my favourites from this weeks poetry bus! It is hard to reflect on these things without sounding either too flippant or too over the top. I like your exact, without frills style in this one, whilst maintaining a very real power.

Totalfeckineejit said...

Lovely, and the fotprints are something we can all aim to leave!