Pain is Life

Labor, worry,

struggle, and strife:

These are pain; These are life.

Aching, burning,

fatigue and isolation;

These are pain; This is life.

For as every church child knows,

the utopian ease of Eden's gardens

fell to Eve's ambition;

And it is no matter, any way,

for though comforts and analgesics

do well for a soft sabbatical;

It is in pain and struggle, diminishing as they can be,

that Darwin-tested meaning and redemption

are chaotically at last discovered.