Live to Live (Vive Ut Vivas) - Poem

Around 2007 I got a tattoo on a drunken night out in Savannah, Georgia. Post cancer diagnosis in 2017 it’s taken on a different significance for me. Vive Ut Vitas is latin and basically translates to ‘live that you may live’, in other words, make the most of life. I penned this during a hospital stay in 2018.

It’s often said that life is brief
Death is indeed our best known thief
But youth obscures the truth of this
A fear of dying, all to easy to dismiss

But what if health escaped you
What if luck forsaked you
Your serve of life cannot be borrowed
So live as if there’s no tomorrow

Live your life without reserve
Love, explore, take risks and serve
It’s easy to excuse delay
But live boldly, come what may

We tend to search for greater purpose
Blind to the beauty of life’s surface
We beg for more, we yearn, we pray
Blind to greater majesties in our everyday

We can spend our lives in ardent planning
Blind to basic understanding
We hide, we manage, lie and hate
For some of us love comes too late

Live that you may live.