Faith of Our Fathers

if death is the end,

and birth the means,

failure is justified.

at an early age

family failed

due to too much

                    thought.

followed by a religion

        that came up short,

failing

        at all but derision.

passion, sticky and short-lived,

not quite clean, failed

its climatic mission

         being just illusion.

love, illusive across a universe,

defined poetically,

stands alone

          against the tide of failure.

the garden yields its rose

to the failing fire, subsuming passion,

religion,      derision,      failure.

death claims

without aims,

and the rose       shames

                    justified failure.