A poem for your wisdom portfolio
The Things We Do to Be Remembered
The urge, the urge, to not be lost in time
Makes men and women do things sublime.
Yet observe not all the outcomes are fine
And it ends in just as many a crime.
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We struggle to the poles and wheeze up peaks
Shoot into space and cross unknown seas.
We paint pictures and write bestseller books
Write music and become great cooks.
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We play for awards and patent inventions
Become captains of industry and build mansions.
We get doctorates and pile pyramids for our tombs
Donate to charities and collect heirlooms.
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To free the citizens, we lead a revolution
Then become dictators for their subjugation.
For the fame of power we suffer damnation
Justify genocide and decimate a proud nation.
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We give life in battle for our land and people
But cheat and get ahead with nary a scruple.
We draw family trees to show we’re special
For everlasting name like Sisyphus we struggle.
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With this siren call of instinct encumbered
We go through lives dismembered.
Eternal sleep of death the only release
From doing what we do to be remembered.
