The Ancients named

Four essential elements:

Earth

Air

Fire

Water

Believing these substances

To comprise all known living existence

Later observers recognized

That these four elements did not account

For certain aspects of the human condition

And so named four “humors”

Controlling the functioning of the human body:

Blood

Yellow Bile

Black Bile

Phlegm

Still later scientists came to learn

Of other essential elements

Cells that make up plant and animal life

Atoms and molecules which constitute all matter

While others reflected on

Even more elemental particles

Protons

Neutrons

Electrons

Photons

And still others examined

The vast emptiness between all the known structures in the Universe

The forces by which those structures interact

And even “anti-matter” and “dark stuff” to account

for presences and interactions which could not otherwise be reconciled

Each of these constructs

Sought to explain physical being

What observers could lay hands upon

See with their own eyes

Or deduce from logic and reason

As necessarily existing

Yet none of these concepts

Of essential elements

Accounted for the defining character

Of humanity:

That spark we call “life”

That awareness we call “sentience”

That reasoning we call “intellect”

That immortality we call the “soul”

And though the physical elements

Earth, Air, Fire, Water

Humors, Cells, Atoms

Anti-matter, emptiness

May be necessary to “being”

And to our corporeal existence

It is the more ethereal elements

Life

Sentience

Intellect

Soul

Which are necessary to “living”

To the emotions we summon

The memories we build and retain

The legacy we impart at our passing

The interconnectedness we share with all things

And thus

They are truly

The essential elements

Of who and what we each

and collectively

Are

By Mike Turner

From: United States

Website: http://www.MikeTurnerSongwriter.com

Twitter: SchoonerSkipper

Facebook URL: https://www.facebook.com/MikeTurnerSongwriter