Life for Taking

It’s a wonder anyone
Remains alive, so many
Dying in any moment.

Some day, won’t be anyone,
But for now the total mass
Of human flesh keeps growing,

And it seems just amazing,
Between aging and disease,
Wars and random violence,

Injuries and accidents,
And the general weakness
Of all flesh, that it does so.

You could go in an instant.
You could linger for months more,
No more than decades, for sure,

But the cavalcade goes on,
The mortality parade,
Mostly abrupt on the news,

Mostly slow in the village,
But it goes. That the only
Way it grows is by childbirth

Is something to contemplate,
When you consider how hard
And mortal is birth itself.

That anyone ever has
The energy to create
More anyones is also

Unfathomable unless
Taken for granted. What moves
Life remains mysterious

As it’s relentless, hunger
Out of minerals, hunger
For no reason but to live

In the face of dying, live
For the hunger for living
For giving life for taking.