The King Dies Every Day

All subjects of the Eastern king are mortal,
yet the king himself had died long ago—
still he leaves his shadow upon the throne,
still he lends his hand to the business of the realm.
 
But deaths crowd daily at the palace gates,
and the work of rule grows heavy,
for fear of death rules the people.
The learned summon speechless phantoms,
the unlettered elders call from the abyss,
and the king—dead yet not dead—
conducts his royal labor
amidst the dark, with half a belly fed,
in seas of law and knowledge,
in rivers of blood,
his conscience trembles,
while the people are deceived once more.
 
Those who wipe their tears,
wash their dusty hands,
and labor still—
they too must one day die.
For who is immortal, and where, and when?
Each day survival is itself a death,
struggle and protest the rhythm of life.
Better perhaps to die a little every day
than once for all,
for who became immortal by one death alone?
 
The king dies every day,
dispensing knowledge even in decay.
You revel in corruption,
and still preach morality to others!
This simple path—
who understands, understands.
Some subjects learn the lesson:
to die each day is to live,
and thus find a crooked seat in the golden court.
 
So it goes, and so it shall go:
through many deaths,
man fashions the path of immortality.
In new millennia,
king or subject,
each knows this truth:
one must walk that road,
sketching with broken conscience
an imagined picture of equality.