A man had a wish that his living would never be finished
But somehow be rendered immortal, its force undiminished
A ceaseless unfolding of consciousness, free of all ill
Unfettered by any constraint save the bonds of his will.
He knew that his body could never sustain the conceit
And didn’t believe that a soul could exist in its meat
Which meant that he couldn’t rely on a heaven or god
To rescue his sense of himself from the box in the sod.
He turned, as had many before him, to literature, art
Those vehicles by which we extend the short lease of the heart
But wasn’t quite satisfied; life, as he saw it, must grow
Or else be as dead as a stone in eternity’s flow
And poetry, music or painting, however repeated
Were still, with each reading, or playing, or viewing, completed
A ghost resurrected to caper a while in the sun
Then back to the grave when the brief entertainment was done.
No, what he required was a tale that could not have an ending
A life of its own independent and always extending
The dream of perpetual motion in literary endeavour
A story that captured his all and continued forever.
He programmed computers; he worked through the day and the night
For years, till his body was palsied, his hair turned to white
And never gave up on his plan for an epic construction
So great that the programme would never complete its production
But, given parameters, patterns of notes for the raga
Would write on and on, never finish the ultimate saga.
At last, from his death-bed, he stretched his hand feebly to press
The key that commanded the start of the writing. Success!
The epic poured forth. It was titled “Immortal in Rhyme”
And started “A man had a wish”, and went on for all time.
But not in the way he’d envisaged - it seemed to repeat
In some kind of loop, so the programme could never complete.
And as he collapsed with the thought fading fast from his head
His eye found the line where eternity started. It read:
“His eye found the line where eternity started. It read:
“ ‘His eye found the line where eternity started. It read:
“ ‘ “His eye found the line where eternity started. It read:
“ ‘ “ ‘His eye found the line where eternity started. It read: