Year's End Poem by Robert J Meyer

In a time of some reflection
Those who have gone before are called to mind.
The great and the forgotten,
The notorious, the angelic and the undistinguished -
All have left their traces on the human current,
Caused subtle shifts and bends, bubbles in the flow.

What is their legacy?
What do we owe them in memorial?

These questions are inevitably selfish.
In the end, how we regard them
Is how we wish to be regarded in our turn.
Karmic consequences confound us, though.
Whatever we conclude obliges no one else to follow.
If there is a god, she laughs.