570. What Was All Of It For?

As we grow older, we wonder,

What was all of it for?

Is there some rhyme or reason,

For all that comes before?

Astute men throughout the ages,

Have made many a claim;

Though what’s the use in guessing,

When no one’s lived the same?

Are experiences naught more,

Than sense and memory?

Which float and flutter inside,

‘Til souls, from the world, flee?

Will anything be learned or changed?

Will all we are be lost?

If all that pain was for nothing,

Was it not then, too high a cost?

As we grow older, we wonder,

What was all of it for?

Is there some rhyme of reason,

For all that comes before?

Though ev’rything has it’s season,

Aren’t we left as incomplete lore?

When here on earth there is no road,

That leads through another soul’s door?

K. Aldaya, 1/13/22

Picture: By: Ilya Shishikhin on Unsplash; https://unsplash.com/photos/-K7yvsDvj2g

563. Human Experience

I’ve experienced the infinite gloom of the soul,

Devoid of hope.

A bottomless hole.

I’ve experienced the ageless cruelties of man,

These would-be gods,…

Seeking praise since time began.

I’ve experienced the horrors of where no one dares to go.

Where no one understands,

And no one will ever know.

I’ve experienced the suffering of more than one human’s plight.

I’ve split apart so many times,

That nothing ever feels right.

Yet, I’ve experienced love and joy, and inexpressible beauty,

So I wonder if in the end I’ll feel it was worth it…

To have been part of humanity.

K. Aldaya, 9/15/21

Picture: By Joshua Earle on Unsplash; https://unsplash.com/photos/wyaMgb1ToUI

497. An Uncivil War

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You were not kind,

And you weren’t the worst;

And though you’re gone,

I must say first,

I wish we could’ve met again one day,

Yet time has taken you away,

And now we’re history.

Strong wooden houses,

We each stood there in time,

Though soon the floors creak,

And are covered with grime;

And I wish we could’ve gone to see,

And understand our history;

Before you were torn down.

I longed for more,

Yet now it can’t be.

We remain unvisited;

Unpreserved and empty.

They say that it’s an uncivil war,

To fight time for anything more…

Than what we are given.

So here I stand,

In the past and present,

With only a memory,

To prove you are absent.

We are nothing more than mere moments in time,

A barren plot,… a whisper,… a passage in rhyme…

Civilly squandered.

K. Aldaya, 10/20/19

In Memoriam

Picture: Judith Henry’s House, Manassas, Virginia, 1862; American Civil War; https://www.pinterest.ch/pin/462815299200135707/

444. Embrace

I climb onto the highest branch,

As the winds caress the leaves.

All about the forest,

The fairies sit on eaves,…

Humming, as they rest.

The sky is filled up to the brim,

With loose clouds swimming about,

That with delighted care,

Will soften themselves out,

To drift into the air.

I sit on the branch as the wind,

Soothes and permeates beneath,

The hard shell carried ’bout,

As a protective sheath,

From other forms about.

They do not understand me wind.

They don’t discern you either.

Why you love to wander:

To feel, and to occur,…

Within life…and yonder.

To the very ends of the world,

And to the depths of the soul.

To feel more than mere words,

Could e’er hope to extol,

In the aria’s of birds.

I am not afraid of the wind,

Which penetrates through the skin.

Yet, I fear humankind,

For what they do to skin,

To rape the soul and mind.

I climb onto the highest branch,

As the winds pass through with ease.

Close my eyes and breathe-in,

That gentle summer breeze,

Which embraces within…

For a moment……………………and forever.

K. Aldaya, 6/16/18

Picture: https://wallpaperstock.net/woman-red-hair-dress-rose-tree-wallpapers_w41750.html

418. Mortal Paths

Another night ‘lone I lie,

And drift the vast path of thought.

Oh, how many years wasted?

Wandering endlessly…

Though, always onward led?

Led unto my own demise;

A maze of my own making.

What a waste of life…of time:

So precious…so finite…

Squandered in verse and rhyme.

I am nothing. Never was.

Mortality haunts my brain.

For I know not where to start,

Nor how to find the worth,

In the pleadings of heart.

Will anyone remember?

Or will everyone forget?

This mortal realm where I walked,…

On paths without ending;

Where all alone I talked…

To you.

“Hello”………………………………………………………….”Goodbye”.

K. Aldaya, 11/24/17

Picture: https://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip-9726293-stock-footage-handwriting-a-letter-by-candle-light.html