An old Man lies dying 

In the cradle of his birth.

Choking, Burning.

His breath grows shallow,

And his eyes fade dim.

In doom, he is

Alone.

 

The Man’s grip tightens around his deathbed-post.

His thin blood boils with memory.

Dignity!

He cries in rage,

I will not be forgotten!

I will not slip as cowards do,

Quietly into the hateful night!

My kingdom come!

Look upon my peerless might,

Of present and antiquity,

All ye who seek despair!

 

All this he said,

Into the stillness,

The emptiness,

The silence and the dark.

 

When and whence comes the weeping?

How honor left unpaid with solemn homage?

Why must the virtuous want for loving vigil?

That mournful husk,

He is a great Man, a powerful Man.

The legacy he leaves 

Cannot be denied.

 

When the Man was young,

Nature bent to his will.

For he stood indomitable among known creation.

Angels sung of his virtue,

For he was ingenious and fearless and pure.

Evil cowed at his fury,

For his sword was fire and atom, swift and terrible.

He forged Mjolnir and wielded it

Upon the beaches of Normandy.

He wrote the Vedas

 on the train to Gettysburg.

He painted the Mona Lisa

with Tyrian Purple and the Blood of Christ.

He stood upon the shores of the Bosphorus and proclaimed himself

Pharaoh

Caesar

Khan

Mansa

Tlatoani

President

Queen

And made it so.

 

Thus is glory.

The stars slip silently away.

The planet turns in fitful sleep.

The universe lost hope two billion corpses past,

So now it laughs.

Death never gets old.

 

The Man has lived the whole of life

Alone.

Now consciousness grants its last gift:

An Affirmation of sorts.

As he looks out upon the inevitable,

Upon the impossible,

Upon what he has done,

He at last knows why.