Some lives are notable for posterity

engraved and embalmed,

ascending to a leather-bound future

on volumes of stepped books

layers of notability, with curators

and seekers ferretting over them

revealing to students this or that general

or discoverer,  politician, oligarch

explorer, I.T.giant most recently.

The big boys of finance holed up, faceless

'til death brings its permanent reward.

 

These are safe, society embracing and lauding them

with horror or respect in equal measure,

each according to his or her needs and deeds.

The world stage gives them their moments:

sherry shared in consummate rooms

with fine rugs and quadrangles or lawns

noblesse oblige.

 

Then there are those, just keeping up

or slipping back, reserved for obscurity,

back to a yesterday's repetition

walking the plank to an ocean of anguish

preserved only for mediocrity

unseen, unfulfilled.

Finally in their only release

their dwelling places are cleared

and other simple souls will tread warily

and with sadness at such little to waste

collect those snapshots in cardboard boxes

and hopefully preserve them and the smiling insignificance

of these well-thumbed messages as if to say:

"They had their life, and wouldn't have lived it any other way."