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Poetry

The Last Question

by Ben G. Yacobi

With every passing moment that cannot be seized,
You discover that light cannot be captured and time cannot be stopped,
And that life is fleeting.
You realize that most of the realities created in the mind are illusory,
And most things in life are not important at all.
You recognize that all your efforts eventually fade away with time,
Yet like Sisyphus you keep carrying the burden of life in an uphill climb,
And find some measure of meaning in a seemingly meaningless world.
You try to preserve your freedom within a nature that enforces its rules on life,
And to maintain your dignity in a society that imposes masks on you.
You endure through difficult challenges and failures,
And know that you must keep enduring to the end.
You wait in vain for a revelation about the unknowable that keeps its silence,
And admit that you will never reach a full understanding of existence.
You think within the constraints of language and the limits of reason,
And live between doubt and certainty, and between illusion and reality.
You concede there may be no design in nature and no Designer outside of it,
No final truth about life, and no absolute meaning in it.
You struggle not only with the answers, but with the questions too.
Now what do you do?

Ben G. Yacobi is the author/co-author of several books on physics, as well as of a number of essays on philosophy.