The Dependable Memory

/* In high school, I was told to write a 500 word essay answering the simple prompt, what legacy do I want to leave? I starting writing and it started rhyming.

A footprint, a fingerprint, a seemingly misplaced grain of sand.
When I finally leave this earth, what mark will I leave on this land?
Erosion, entropy, the physical will wear away.
Besides, I don’t want a mummified corpse to be the way I stay.
With human intellect, there is other ways to keep hold.
For wherever there are humans, there are stories to be told,
But do we remember all the people who lived throughout the earth.
99% are dead, 99% forgotten, for better or for worse.
The kings, the queens, the heroic tales are remembered through the ages;
the poets and the scholars immortalized in their pages.
While the simple peasant could have vanished in an instant,
yet not a mark be left indicating their existence.
Death is a ritual for every human alive.
We toil and we sacrifice to see Satan’s vengeful eyes.
Billions could die at the snap of my fingers;
yet life would continue, the former individuals remembered by a figure

The futility of attempting to leave a memory mirrors a seed wandering through space.
If it ever stops wandering, it is just another place.
Indubitably, any flower is admirable in isolation,
but in a flourishing meadow can be ignored without explanation.
A seed could just blossom with no one around to see,
and hopefully that single flower will increase the universe’s beauty.
A blacksmith, a farmer, a worker hidden in the mass,
essential to the world, yet forgotten to the past.
A honest work upon their brow, an uneventful life.
Shameful, humanity fails to recognize that type.
An elder with enough memories to pass the time;
his entire life seeming like an endless climb.
What did he accomplish in his effervescent wake?
Never holding hopes for changing his peasants fate.
His accomplishment significant, advancing the human race,
though his blossom among an orchard may have hid his face.
A memory forgotten, a name echoing no longer,
though his existence cemented in the humans he made stronger.

Why would I desire any life with more!
Leaving an imprint on everchanging time is an incredible chore.
I believe there is untapped satisfaction in a life of simplicity,
never to be disappointed by memory’s duplicity.
Even if fickle popularity made me a celebrity,
I would remember there was no benefit to my memory.
So personally, I just want to be remembered for normality,
though only a few individuals will recall my life in totality.
Ideally, a few children will playfully run across,
and in death, a wife would solemnly mourn my loss.
“An honest man,” she would say, “Always gave it his all”
“Regretful he climbed so far, only to face his dreadful fall”
“Every weekday nine to five he labored at his desk”
She would recall, “He was happy enough I guess”
I have always valued the smallest things in life,
though I must similarly learn to accept the smallest strife.
So at the very least, I will progress evolution and pass on my genes,
but I shouldn’t consider that now for I am still just a teen.