Overview
Medium: Poem (Sonnet)
Written: October 2023
First Performed: Bardic Madness XXV, for Challenge 4.4 – Poetry Form Challenge – Sonnets
Oh time, encroaching ever for us all.
Each day that pass, mortality will dwell’eth.
Ye claim but one defense before thine fall.
To breed, and leave in blood thy remnant self.
Yet blood grows thin as generations spawn.
Each season’d pass thy presence growing weak.
Yet do not legen’d heroes still live on,
In spite of ne’er a progeny to speak?
Oh, storied feats in life I do intend.
That broodless I, and seeking none to bring.
When I pass on it shall not be mine end.
On I shall live in every tale they sing.
For all who live in storied memory.
Have found the truest immortality.
Notes
As the name implies, this poem is written as a literal response to the speaker of Shakespeare’s Sonnet Number 12, the message of which is, in short, “Time comes for us all, and the only way to beat it is by having children, which you live on within”.
I have always disagreed with this mentality that one’s only purpose or legacy in life is to have children. We have families beyond those of blood, and we leave an impact upon the world far greater than just the progeny we leave behind. This is best summarized in another one of my musings.
We live on for as long as we exist in memory. The final death only comes when you are forgotten.
Bloodlines die out, or grow thin over the generations. Even if they remain strong, what purpose does it serve if there’s no memory to grant it significance? Everyone is descended from someone, but in order for that to mean anything you have to know who those people were. Not to mention the people from history long since dead with no trace of their bloodlines that are still known today. Why do we remember the great philosophers, the heroes of legend, the conquerors and the tyrants? Because legacy is stronger than just progeny.
What makes a legacy? It’s not where you exist in the blood, it’s where you exist in the mind. The impact you left on the world in your wake, the lives you touched for better or worse, the memories others have formed. Why do we like to tell stories of those that are gone? Because when we remember, for just a moment, it feels like they’re still here with us. The true way to transcend time and live forever, is to leave behind a story worth telling.
Angist Arts 