Dance in the Fire – A Villanelle

Do not let your spirit be leveled flat,
your laughter should rise with the coming sun,
laugh, cry, and dance in the embers of life.

Let old men bedraggle their minds with stats,
because your world is young and just begun.
Do not let your spirit be leveled flat.

Old men in their disheveled rages will chat,
the best of them will say, the world’s undone:
laugh, cry, and dance in the embers of life.

The worst will stand as pillars so fat
from flagellating their littlest pun.
Do not let your spirit be leveled flat.

Whoever is born, dies, and lives by that,
roar against the bald heads of men so dumb;
laugh, cry, and dance in the embers of life,

and you, my friend, might just not fall as flat
as these old grey men who look up to none.
Do not let your spirit be leveled flat;
laugh, cry, and dance in the embers of life.