Planet Unrequitia Poem # 1 - Prologue Poem by Warren Falcon

Planet UnRequitia Poem # 1 - Prologue

Searching Near Mule Kick Creek For William Faulkner's Grave In Mississippi

'I believe that when the last ding-dong of doom has
clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging
tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even
then there will still be one more sound: that of man's
puny, inexhaustible, voice still talking! …not simply
because man alone among creatures has an inexhaustible
voice, but because man has a soul, a spirit capable of
compassion, sacrifice and endurance'

— William Faulkner - Nobel Prize Banquet Speech

'Given the choice between the
experience of pain and nothing,
I would choose pain.' - Faulkner

A sign unseen except on a discarded cigarette pack:

WARNING: The Surgeon General has determined
that paces, any paces, forward, aft, left, right, cannot
defeat what is hoped for in the contents of this package
which allude to

1) satiation (cessation of desire)
2) compassion (soothing of desire)
3) sacrifice ('to make desire sacred')
4) endurance (a man's hope, a woman's genius) .

Should one or none of the above result return
then to the cemetery gate. Note just beyond
the entrance is a garbage can. Ponder. Possibly
say (infinite possibility) (or think) aloud, possibly,
even, make another marker, saying:

'Death is a deed.
Death is a clean sorrow.
It is natural to weep -

Even a waste basket in a cemetery.'

What is concealed beneath matters most,
then the ongoing translation for what
continues to measure paces, what may
even be spoils of the living, either way
either or each indicates there is life after all.

Gather, shall we, by
a pacing river, beauteous,
shining in its endurance,
singing of endurance
which may arrive strangely
ding-dong, brutal,
utterly satisfied:

'A mule will labor ten years
willingly and patiently for you,
for the privilege of kicking you
once.' - Faulkner

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Unrequitia is pronounced Un-re-kwy-sha as in the word 'Unrequited'