Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that 			grabs at what it can.
	--Yann Martel, Life of Pi

we lug our guts around in our bag of bones 
and being
a ticking tangle of purpose and futility,
we seek to make magic of the mincemeat
we’ve been served,
to make art of our existence
before it’s gone too soon 
gone to ruin
our dance with life 
a composition
ending
in death
where decomposition
takes the final bow

meanwhile, the masters behind 
like the masters before 
the masters like us 
break
bread over the bodies 
of work we leave behind,
our dusty rewards raked together
in studied elegies
of the rise and fall
of form and function,
the composition
of the naked ambition
of all who came 
and saw
and were conquered
before 
begging,
more please my mentors 
more please for me.