VANITIES: Celebrating effervescent and ineffectual existence

	In front of a mirror
	pulling out gray hairs
	my wife tries to seem younger:
	ah, how vanity shapes our affairs!

	In front of a stack of books
	devouring page after page
	I make attempts to become wiser
	only to witness my stupidity each day

	In front of a computer
	analyzing production arrays
	a friend seeks power
	yet as his stock on life dwindles
	death is all he'll gain

	Beauty, wisdom, riches, fame
	offer no refuge
	for those in human frames

	Such gifts
	are beyond our feeble reach
	& eventually even all notions of "I" and "you"
	must cease


Ron:   The line between vanity and pride is delicate.

Linda: (nodding) Realizing my insignificance, sometimes I am tempted to inaction.
       I suppose we have to pretend that our small lives matter, even though ultimately they do not.


=====================================================================================
from _Last Poems: Lost Poems_ by T Newfields
SUMMARY:  A work of art, poem and short dialogue on human folly and the triumph of time.
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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