VANITIES: A Celebration of Our Effervescent and Ineffectual Existence

	In front of a silvered glass, 
	plucking out gray hairs
	my wife strives to seem younger 
	to pause time’s inevitable chase—
	ah, how vanity sculpts our affairs!

	In front of stacks of books
	devouring pages, line by line,
	I make futile attempts to become wiser
	only to witness my stupidity ripen over time.

	In front the blue glare of computer screens,
	analyzing complex data streams,
	a friend seeks power and wealth
	yet as his stock on life dwindles
	death is all he'll gain.

	Beauty, wisdom, gold, and acclaim 
	are but hollow shields against the stark,
	offering no shelter for those in human frames, 
	nor offering no spark for spirits that have lost their mark.

	Such gifts
	lie beyond our feeble reach
	& eventually all notions of "I" and "you"
	must fade and cease.
	

Ron:    (leaning back, his eyes tracking a single speck of dust dancing in a sunbeam) 
        You know, the border between vanity and pride is a razor-thin edge. 
        Vanity flatters the mirror, begging it for a lie. Pride worships its reflection, 
        forgetting the why.

Linda:  (a long pause follows as she looks at Ron thoughtfully) I feel the weight of your words.
        When we grasp our own insignificance, inaction becomes a seductive mistress. 
        It’s a strange performance, isn't it? We have to wake up and pretend our tiny, 
        flickering lives are important, and then we have some sort of independent existence, 
        even while we feel the wind already blowing our ink dry as silence enshrines our prose.

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from _Last Poems: Lost Poems_ by T Newfields
SUMMARY:  A meditation on vanity and futility and dialogue about insignificance, 
          exposing how humans frantically chase beauty, knowledge, and power, even 
          though they end up in silence.
KEYWORDS: vanity, futility, human pretension, inevitable death

Author: T Newfields [Nitta Hirou / Huáng Yuèwǔ] (b. 1955 - )
Begun:  1996 in Shizuoka, Japan ✠ Finished: 2023 in Yokohama, Japan
Creative Commons License: Attribution. {{CC-BY-4.0}} 

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