The Nihilist

I sat to dinner, a couple of weeks ago, with a friend and his family and their friends, and the dinner was good, and so too the conversation and wine, also, was given liberally. It was by all means a 'pleasant' environment, and conversations were piqued that were humorous and or interesting and eventually I was broached upon to read. It's not something I like to make a habit of, but for the whole nature of the evening I assented, for the wine I had drunk I felt a little less than my usual nerves and after reading a few their topics were encroached upon, my attitudes then, and lastly my desires. It ended with their agreement that I was a nihilist. I refused the title initially.

Never before has such pleasure been felt

as to those who, in despair, have knelt

and have cupped their hands

as if by brooks, or streams

to covet their face in the unreality of dreams

and here it is due, for any of those

who, in disquietude, should make their repose

and so forget, as if quaffed of Lethe,

that ever before did they beg of death.

Such persons, then, will be robed by the dark,

at home with the night, as with the sky and the lark

and the truths that they know

shall be bound deep within, so that

the seeds of all hope shall sprout nihilism.

How then shall we think to sigh or to weep

when our own suffering has buried the self so deep

that with everything obscured, we gain clarity

and overflowing with pain, happiness is replete?

How then may we think that it is any of worth

when we shall all become dust, and so too shall the Earth?

What then of our cares; so easily borne, when

one day they’ll be nothing, as will the dusk and the dawn?