Whisper of Life: I am Here to Stay

The silent voice of life chimes through time and space,

Whose echo like an eternal sonnet rhymes,

With terrains of doubt and dins of feat;

And reigns over oceans of meanings with nuanced isles,

Whose rules as humble maxim relate: I am here to stay;

Thus, make a wise take of yourself in my realm,

While you are here but a delicate wanderer,

For I am solemn to stay through you or without;

As I did,

Past the blaze of randomness eons passed,

Past the debris of bodies of mighty-build,

Of the mammoth and dinosaur,

I take no chance to replicate:

Through forms, types and nature- disregard,

In the air, thoughts and knacks- I reside;

In every act of seeking permanence;

In the question, doubt, answer, and conviction,

In every cave-painting, tablet, scroll, book, chip, and bio-chip,

In the whining, roaring, chirping, bleating, and growling;

In every hello, blip, and clang,

In every alas- Oh- Ouch- Yes- Halleluja- and Hurray,

I am here to stay;

As I did,

Through the sky watchers, masqueraders,

 the wailers and meditaters

The inquirers and the oracles

The wise men, the artist and scientists,

Outliving the many pursuits to see me in the eye;

Through the creation of gods by humans,

To the creation of humans by the gods,

Outliving the gods ascendance and dethronement from reverence,

Outliving their lingering shadows of fading glory

Against the judgments of time,

I am here to stay;

As I did,

Journeying through carcass of many prides, melancholy and vengeance,

Through my survival mirage tapping your grandeur illusions;

From the reed houses of Sumer,

To the colonnades of Karnack,

To the Athenian amphitheater,

To the boulders of the Incas,

To the Aksumite stale peaks,

As I did,

Through the shifting shadows of time,

When your wish-driven selective remembrance,

Seeking in zebra the camel’s perseverance,

Threaded the sands of the ancient times;

Like a child would look up for guidance but refuses to follow,

To meet your quest only to blemish it as hollow;

Taking yourself the ultimate measure;

Like in the graveyards of Mesopotamia you whined

The curse of a runaway child,

Coveting Gilgamesh’s quest to grip eternity,

Feigning the old yearning as novelty,

Echoing the breath of Amenhotep, Hannibal and Alexander,

Calling arrival your directionless blunder,

I was there,

When you took me lightly 
As if, I stood for a bygone era entity,

As if, the voice, which me: life -and your meaning of me as cousins relate;
I see you forget, 

That I - life- a forbidding permanence with singularity on BEING,

Whispering through the veins and cells of all forms and manifestation,

say renounce this simpleton’s cage of definition;

That for my sustenance your presence is implied,

is but writ of consolation in your mind;

Wise up and honor yourself through each breath in my realm,

While you are here but a delicate wanderer,

Rather taking bliss in the knowledge,

That I have labored eternities to exact your form and intellect,

But mistake it not: I am here to stay with you or without.

.........................

To all of us -humans.

(Tariku Abas Etenesh)