Purposeless Poetry: A God's Youth

An eternity passed before my mind’s dive

Into that moment of death -

Then I passed through alive.

From my bustling life I had been taken,

To a new world beyond the veil,

Where no longer I danced to nature’s jive.

In front of me was a hideous sight,

An upright jackal with human body -

Tearing through me with sheer might.

I screamed in terror, but felt no pain,

While the silent jackal-man placed my heart

To weigh against a single feather, ever so light.

A deep, guttural voice questioned my soul,

‘Has this man of your past always done what he willed?’

The jackal-man! Suddenly, my mouth I could not control.

‘How could he? With the burdens he carried?

The lives which rested on his sacrifices?

His life was always troubled, never whole.’

The jackal-man scoffed as the scales oscillated to my tale -

‘Every time we meet, you tell me this story of sadness,

Of loss and longing, of unfulfilled desires you bewail.

And every time you tell me of your unfinished purpose

Your work, your family, your greatness yet to achieve:

How you worked so hard with the purest of hearts, only to fail.’

‘But I did,’ I retorted with bemoaning rage,

‘That was my purpose, fending for my life, my family -

Every man is born for something as goes the adage.

In doing so, I have given what I willed for what I had to be,

I traded my desires for my responsibilities,

Is this not what we must do, saintly living for a celestial wage?’

The jackal-man laughed, and shook his head in ruth,

‘No! Mortal, your life is so short and definite,

And yet, you waste it searching for purpose and truth.

When, in reality, there is none to find -

Nothing that you do not yourselves conjure:

You are born not to do, but to be - as a god’s youth.’

I shivered, flummoxed by the wisdom of the jackal-man’s ways:

‘But that would mean that my entire life -

A life of work, food, study, sex - of entirely indistinguishable days.

That would mean I accomplished nothing,

When my only need was to accomplish what I wish -

Instead, I merely abandoned that without a second gaze.’

Only tiny oscillations remained for the jackal-man’s scales -

And yet he only smiled with pity at my folly,

‘You had no purpose, mortal, only meaning from your life’s tales.

How your lessons on morality changed the path of a student,

How your consistent aid to one beggar changed his life -

And how over your wish, your responsibility prevails.’

‘I do not understand,’ I sighed with frustration,

‘What does it matter, whether I live or I die,

If there is no purpose, no need for our creation?’

The jackal-man began with profundity,

‘It is because you have no purpose that you are free -

You are not consigned to a fate like mine! It is your salvation!’

Beyond the black eyes of the jackal-man, I sensed his ire -

Doomed to eternally judge, to preside over man

Without respite to do his own or retire.

Perhaps we did not need a purpose for living -

The advice of the jackal-man filled my mind with wonder,

We were not judged by purpose - only by the meaning we inspire.

The scales had settled - the jackal-man curled his lips:

‘The heart is heavier than the feather, weighed by regrets,

By the sins of your imagined purpose and its scripts.

They violated who you were, to make you who you had to be:

You have allowed what others desired of you to

Eclipse what you wanted to be, though it was in your grips.

‘I understand now,’ I sighed with lament,

The jackal-man declared: ‘I cannot send you to the afterlife -

Your heart outweighs the feather of truth and intent.’

A strange crocodile-lion-hippopotamus beast appeared before me:

‘This time,’ I said with purpose, ‘I will be different.’

And so, the creature swallowed me to my Earth-ward descent.

I passed from the guts of the animal-god into a womb

Of a lady giving birth, with my head coursing into the world -

My last thoughts echoed in my mind with doom.

What if I forgot the wisdom of the jackal-man?

Would it be my fate and his to forever repeat this charade?

Always close to realising, only knowing past my tomb.