Commas, periods, question marksLife is a seriesof punctuation marks.I write sentences, build paragraphsBut unlike the author of a bookI am uncertainwhere one chapter endsAnd the next begins. Asterisks, colons, exclamation marksLife is a strugglein the placement of the marks.I outline rough draftsBut it is not untilFinal edition is presentedto the criticThat final editing occursAnd often added chaptersneed be writtenBefore, even Iknow what was written.Chapters, volumes, reference books ...Life is writing on the tick tock blackboard of infinityAnd inthe tick tock expansion of history.Each of us is an author, It may vary in quantityquality and quotabilityBut we write.Conception unto itself is writing. Each of us is an author, It may vary in quantityQuality and quotabilityBut we write.Conceptionunto itself is writing. As I surge into my 80's. I have matured to realize our times on earth, individually, are meaningful. Over the years I have maintained a flirtation with this concept through my poetry and development of my personal growth. But until I realized the tangible concrete evidence supporting this fact, I did not realize how factual and important this progression is to us individually, and that it demands recognition in the latter years of our lives. What are/is worthwhile? Are/where we pawns or carpenters in the living of life?Recently I researched an ancestor from 290 years ago. He was born in Roxburghshire, Scotland. In January 1731. He and his wife married in South Carolina. They and their children were but grains of descendants machining up a chain of love connecting me, my family and our descendants to a chain of love that appears endless.Up to this encounter, the relevancy of these connections seemed remote and of little importance to my connections to today's world and my place in it or to their relevancy to my descendants. I am of age and vintage to have dealt, struggled with and survived most consequences arising from asking the generationally unanswerable questions of youth and middle age to find only what my forefathers left me. Ask the questions, record benefits, and, if there is anything of value, pass it on to descendants to help them come to the conclusion to pass the questions to their progeny, their descendants, ad Infinium. A common dilemma for our age group, I think.We have asked the questions and marched to the beat of our drums, Was it worthwhile?What will we leave behind: legacy or trivia? Something or nothing?Since the sands of time, ocean bottoms, beaches, sand dunes, deserts have been built by the accumulation of one grain of sand at a time.Our lifetimes are like that, Our worth to the history of mankind and its value in the chain of love for all future links to research and judge as to value left behind is being constructed, dedicated to, and will bequeath to those yet to join the chain. Our personal contributions will be the size of the link we leave behind. Life began with conception, is recorded form birth to death, with a dash between. this link uniting us to the chain is the story symbolized by that little space that hides so much. Be aware of the significance of that hanging dash. It advertises how much or little we will mean in the construction of the chain when our descendants, take time to investigate the true meaning and worth contained in the space symbolized.