Humanity is as the surface of a vast pond

Being visibly stirred and moved by the actions of individuals

As one passerby casually tossed a stone in, then walked away

I saw that the ripples continued long after he was there to behold them

Going this way and that

Expanding in influence from the place where they began

So my friend

Find the largest and best stone you can

And cast it purposefully into the pond

Let its ripples roll to affect

And to be affected by those of others

Throw it high, throw it hard

So that even after your tenure at the pond is over

Still its ripples will roll

And even in death

Your life will whisper

What you yelled

While your lungs still owned breath

Remind yourself today

That this will not be forever

Your transient and brief pilgrimage on the lively side of earth’s soil is short

And the length of its precarious song, uncertain

Yet, while you live, make yourself at home

Do your worst to do your best

In the eons that came before you

Nothing of you was known

But for now, you are

And when it comes that you are not

Let not the latter condition of things

Be as the state of the former

When nothing of you had ever been whispered

Leave not this world in an underwhelmed state

Or indifferent and unmoved at your remembrance

As surely as you are here now

You will not be in one hundred years

Do not hide your face from that fact

Or be afraid to face it

This is the common story of billions who have passed

It will be for the billions who live now

And for billions more who will be born

Every one of us is not but the whisper of the century to come

Let us treat the world kindly while we live

So it will whisper kindly of us

When we have turned to dust

Copyright 2013-Luke Austin Daugherty