POETRY

Serpentine Legacy
Emily-Jayne Smythe

It is an unavoidable part of being human—change
By autumn’s end,
trees become naked and bare
And when winter begins,
so too shall we shed our delicate skin
In the coming days, when the skies refuse to relent
their heavy blanketing and morose temperament,
It all becomes so apparent, doesn’t it?
Life is like a vase—beautiful and empty
Such stillness and peace,
hidden between the snowbanks and calmly sea states,
surely can only be found
where time seems to slip away. . .
It’s just a dream then, maybe?
It’s okay to float alongside it—lose yourself in fullness

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And when there is a funeral every day
for every little part of us. . .
We dance like snakes, but we will not mourn
the scales we’ve left behind
Everything turns to ash eventually, right?
There’s no need to fight it then—the fear
Sometimes it’s easier to just go along for the ride
After all, it’s happening in accordance with the divine
It’s really just one big comedic spectacle
when you stop to think about it. . .
And the best performer is to be afraid of death
Life is a masquerading event—we want to escape but we can’t
We have to wither and wane,
fall and fray
Finally leaving behind the burden of our namesakes
Change is inevitable, why ignore its gentle embrace. . .
When you can take part in the great cosmic uncovering?
The metamorphosis of human suffering

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It’s a never-ending gift—a gracious offering to reinvent yourself
So say now: goodbye to all that we have ever known
in anticipation of the life that is there waiting. . .
. . .Because by winter’s end
comes the dawn of a new seed planted in spring
And when the last dusk of summer begins
We’ll all be unrecognizable in our serpentine legacy. . .
. . .and rejoice in our acceptance of things ending.

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