Attempts at Happiness

Water Stilled

They'll sing, dance, smile, laugh, 

hug, love, make love, craft

when you are gone

 and have made your scene. 

Surely, in a river of blood and tears, they will lament. 

Under loud booms and sudden passing, they will shriek. 

But you are wildly arrogant in thinking you can stop them

from feeling the joys that make them human.

You wanted them to feel, to sense, to be your profuse anger

and were intent to set, to secure, a fire that would burn forever. 

Yet there ain't such a thing

and in due time, you from society's collective memory will fling

into nothingness, into space, 

as sand in the wind. 

Your inferno cannot win. 

For humans are water, an eternal river flow, 

each individual flowing on a plot of land for a short time;

they come and go. 

One who tries to set a river on fire will prove himself a fool. 

His hate will not last and the fire will not rule. 

Why, then, did you not sing with them, while you were there?

Why am I the only one who cares?

Maybe I'm wrong in my poetry; maybe that's so. 

Maybe humans are nothing like water. 

When does a drop of water forget how to flow?