Sic Nos Teneo

He beat the pavement with brass knuckles
to find a purpose for life and pain—
the concrete held its secrets in
and smiled at the brash display:
how audacious the race of men can be!
fighting and flaunting their stupidity.
For even God, with infinite omniscience,
doesn't know the reason for existence.
But mice and men must have a pretense,
or the cats will hunt them down,
so on and on we hit the ground.

He beat the pavement with brass knuckles
until his breath came short and shallow.
The adversaries stared at one another,
and the man's eyes grew swiftly narrow.
What a cold, taunting, crafty surface!
but the ground, with all its pride and arrogance,
will never break to interrogation,
to scream to men and all the nations
that life's best lived with humble ignorance—
free of fists and brass and bile,
full of respect and humble ignorance.

~04/07