Aug 9, 2017 Original Poetry
Ars Longa
August 9th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Wanting to be everything at once,
Dazzled by life and people, and birds,
She lunges into the air, grabs
Every passing fancy, every fleeting thrill,
Learning, leaving, moving on,
Soaking in all that rains down.
What she wants is to be everywhen,
To be new, and young, and middle-aged, and old
To push into the cocoon before conception,
To peer around the rich red womb,
To slice through her days like a swallow
Slicing through a rain-storm,
To part the heavy clouds after she dies,
And soar, spiraling, into the endless sky.
Then, remembering hunger and thirst,
And chores and unfinished dreams,
And playing the part she’s meant to play
The part she wove into her own nest
As she spun out her days, she retreats,
Finds a patch of sun on a branch,
And hums her life into existence.
This is good, she thinks, humming.
This is life, full of fineness.
The sun glows gold, the branches hold,
Here is food, and shelter, love, joy,
Leave striving behind, and ambition.
Leave the unrelenting stress,
Of things needing to be accomplished –
Leave it all, sit and stare, and hum.
Ars longa, vita brevis,
Ars longa, vita brevis, ars longa …
The humming becomes louder,
As the sun sinks in the saturated sky,
Here is a piece of beauty to be carved out
and reshaped, to gaze at and adore.
What can she do, but adore it?
___________________________________________________________________________________