THE VOICE OF THE EPOCHS

Writer's Note: The poem is narrated by the multitudes of men and women who lived during different eras of history, united in a single voice as they look upon the present age and its people. They pronounce a message of warning to consider both the temporality of human civilization and the immortality of the soul.

From the past surges of shifting historic tides, 
Of old aeons of eras now outrun by time,
We are the voice of those who outlived the ages, 
Both rulers and subjects of each epoch's stride,
For though transient they flourished and were gone,
We who bore love, stroked pain and joy in its midst,
Who sucked its rich bounties and its affliction bred,
In spite of its extinguished passing still live!

We lived in a delusion, a beautiful mirage,
Secured for a fleeting moment, humored by time,
And within its deceptive favour, indulged our lust,
For wealth, fame and the quenching of our greed,
As we embarked on frenzied, eager hunts,
For life's enticing offerings that dealt their curses too,
And the echoes of our voices resounding through time,
To a careful ear, whispers the harsh lessons of yore!

Thus from the opposing banks of time, mediated
With impassable expanse that the two binaries divide,
We look upon the present, brightened in temporal rays,
With immortal men who like us, render their tunes,
Strains that are played from the harps of their souls,
To add to the song that births that mortal age,
Till one day they find the zeniths of its glory gone, 
And stripped of its adornments, they stand alone!

Just as we lived in illusion of ceaseless perpetuity, 
And who our labours spent to its regal dominion,
Thought that ours was the crown of man's evolution,
So the present ages dance to their own praise,
And with grave solemnity orchestrate its sham,
As if the grand monuments they raise will last,
For the epochs lie dead, exhausted of spirit and life, 
While its legion multitudes await an unforeseen fate!