THE BIG QUESTIONS, 17: STAYING ALIVE EVEN IF WE DID NOT PLAN TO BE BORN---A JOIE D'VIVRE

This is Poem #17 in my series of poem-responses to the Big Questions to celebrate National Poetry Month (NaPoMo aAril 2013).

What does it mean to Stay Alive? Even if one did not plan to be born, why is it preferable to make a go of living it up with elan and joie d'vivre?

 

 

 

STAYING ALIVE---A JOIE D'VIVRE

Because what we now have is a life

we will never have again, something

as unrepeatable as living or dying,

we drink to it as often as we turn down

an empty cup, and learn to forgive

what was given or not, noblese oblige,

coming as we do to this strange place

without as much as a warning or even

our consent. We did not know.

Because we did not plan to be born,

is it too vexing to learn--perhaps

to revel in--the myriad acts of loving,

of living, and in return be grateful

to perform the surprisingly magical art

of shaping life, nurturing it, finding it

where no one would lead us, blind

as we are to this fire in our weak loins?

Was that left behind by a rushed maker,

like a spare screw, and we had to find

where it would fit snugly, divinely apt

and delicately, deliciously, our manner

of staying alive when dying is better?

 

--- ALBERT B. CASUGA

 

The Big Questions, Philosophy by Simon Blackburn, 2009, Quercus Publishing Plc, London, UK. Prof. Blackburn teaches philosophy at the University of Cambridge in England.