Sunset Of Life

Valdemar (Vadim) Malin

Photo copyright: pixabay.com

Birth is for free, but your life is on lease,
You’ll give it back at the lease end—it’s void.
Good life or bad life, why can’t we avoid
Frightening thoughts—Life is not what it is?

Sunset of Life. After glorious climb,
Life slowly sinks into darkness of oceans
Leaving behind our world of emotions,
Memory lane and the secrets of Time.

Painful to watch how Life carries away
Youth, dreams and everything we care about
Leaving us struggling with questions and doubts,
Hopeless and desperate, frail and grey.

Life! What is it? Is it minutes and days,
Years and decades in eternal migration?
It’s like the birds in a flying formation—
Blink once or twice, and it’s flown away.

Is Life just memories freely accrued
Stored at a brain site, obscure and elusive?
Time makes them vague, unreal, confusing
And wipes them out completely for good.

Is Life for real or it’s a mirage?
Why at the end are we full of confusion?
Is real Life just a game of illusion?
Virtual images planted collage?

We think we see flocks of birds in the sky,
Hear their chirping with joy and affection.
But can we count on our perceptions
Or even trust what we see with the eyes?

Seeing, it makes real world what it is—
Known reality truthful reflection.
Vision is false—false are other perceptions,
And real world no longer exists.

Our eyes, as a symbol of sight,
Serve as a camera–image projector.
They generate through the photoreceptors
Short zaps of current for each dot of light.

That’s what eyes do—nothing more, days and nights.
They are transducers of light into current.
Eyes cannot see! It is so apparent—
Vision is wrongly described as eye-sight.

Then those zaps run to brain unrestrained.
Brain! Yes, of course, it creates our vision!
It is in charge of this epic transmission—
Billions of impulses zoom through the brain.

How do they find their way in the brain?
Yet, it’s the easiest part of the mission—
Brain has to play either God or magician
Turning them back into images chains.

It’s like a million paintings of art—
Scrape all the paint and try to replace it.
Brain wouldn’t do it, it has no bases—
No intelligence, reason and smarts.

Clueless we are! Are we technically blind?
Who’s in the world in control of the vision?
Brain doesn’t make those mental decisions,
Brain is Post Office—Postmaster is…Mind!

Mind is the sole producer of thoughts;
Logic, intelligence, reason creator;
Data converter; a skilled code breaker—
Only Mind can connect those dots.

Eyes just project and transduce really fine,
Brain just transmits, only Mind does conversion
Planting true images. Or their versions?
Are those images whims of the Mind?

No surprise there, Mind has a free hand.
Tricks of magicians prove—Mind is faking,
Limbs are long gone—cunning Mind makes them aching,
Songs in your head—it is Mind, not a band.

Image deciphered by Mind is a tree.
But it’s not real—a mental construction
Built from electrical impulse extraction—
Mind owns the Code and knows the key.

Code is changed, and we’ll suddenly see
How real world will be turned upside down––
Eerie reality, alien sounds…
And our tree’s no longer a tree.

Maybe some hidden umbilical cord
Links other worlds to the world that we live in.
Maybe the images, Mind is retrieving,
Come from a place like a parallel world.

Parallel world is the world we trespass
When we are sound asleep or daydreaming.
There, the unreal and real are teaming,
And we can live in the future and past.

Parallel life! There, the dead are alive,
But we can still have emotions and feelings;
Live real life, both boring and thrilling—
Which is the real or parallel life?

Mess and confusion! But who is behind?
Who should be blamed for the faulty perceptions?
Mind! It’s the Master of tricks and deceptions…
O-ops, no clue—what is actually Mind?

Is Mind a ghost? Try to see it or touch.
Is Mind the Magus that makes you a person?
Is it a part of the brain or freelancer?
Where does it live? We don’t know that much.

Is Mind a brain? We are still unaware.
Yet, if brain’s injured, Mind stops, even fails.
Mind does not fail—Postmaster stops mail
When the post-office is shut for repair.

“I bring reality,” Mind boldly brags.
“Mind’s my creation,” Reality touts.
Who tells the truth? It is still in the doubt—
Mind or Reality? Chicken or egg?

Back to square one. What does Life really mean?
Is real Life just a matter of choices?
Are we the echoes of Mystery Voices?
Shadow-puppets on Mystery Screen?

…Sunset of Life. Rapid minutes and days,
Grey-bearded time carries on its migration,
Vanishing birds in a flying formation,
Echo is rapidly dying away.