To Be Sad

To Be Sad 

To be sad is to understand the universe,
the known and unknown,

to be sad is to accept the impossibility
of knowing all or even a sliver,

to be sad is the need to know more
than we now understand, yet sure the path of quest
is filled with more doubt than satisfying truths.

Too often I lay awake thinking about my place
as an inconsequential speck in time,

too often I dream of heaven, only to wake
to the reality of Milton's paradise lost

too often my thoughts bend themselves
into a pretzel of abstractions, looping
around until there is no escape or satisfaction.

To be sad is to contemplate infinity,
from endless nothing to mindless nothing

to be sad is knowing years are just
nanoseconds of cosmic time

to be sad is seeing the past having existed
without you, the present not caring whether
you exist, the future not knowing you existed.

Author: Peter A. Witt

Photo credit: AH NP on Unsplash