A Pain in the Neck

i love a good pain in the neck.

i love the communal efforts
of my constituent parts
to find, address, soothe,
heal.

Pains, i know, can be ominous:
These i do not love.

What i cherish
Are those pains
That remind me
That i am plugged in --

That synapses and nerve endings,
Corpuscles and cartilage
Are challenged --

That they, too, react and respond.
i am a Tower of Babel,
Reaching toward the Sun --
Made of bricks that breathe.

Unguents and anti-inflammatories
Will reduce the pain
And gently draw a veil over
The urgent, insistent truth:

We are built on air,
Anchored in water.
Tunnels of time run through us.
Atoms collide.
Things fall apart.

We die.

And we go on.

--Mr. Gobley