Homage to Housman
by Nick
Of my three score years and ten
I've twenty seven left, but then
I've spent the whole of forty three
So adding up its plain to see
There isn't so much left to me.
When I was young the days were slow
And time stood still for all I knew
Or cared
I wasn't scared.
But now the days depart at pace
There hardly seems to be a place
To stop
And think.
For now that I've reached forty four
I'll strive to shut the study door
Push all my daily work outside
So I can tell myself I've tried
To contemplate what life remains
To use my brains
to take great pains
To question what my life's about
Before the candle gets snuffed out.
To chose what goals I'm aiming for
So I can have a chance to score.
At eighteen years I said to me
That thirty were enough to be
On this earth for.
The world I thought was too unkind
For children and their tender minds
For parents could not give enough
No one was formed of the right stuff
For doing that.
At thirty two I had a child
A love child.
Fortune on us smiled,
Or so I thought.
The child was what our loving brought.
Between a woman and a man
Deep love the generations span
Life opens up
It fills that cup
Transcends the helpless ego plan
I do not live with them any more
At forty years I closed that door
Another child soon came to me
Another girl on my family tree
A second chance,
Another home,
A place to settle,
No more to roam.
But is that what my life's about?
Their lives go on while mine dies out
To see them grow like blossoms bright
While I gaze on with failing sight?
I care for them and love them too,
But is that all I have to do
With life?
I often stroll among the graves
The stones that stand,
While others pave
The ground I tread.
Could I be happy to be dead?
What words would have to mark my grave
Provide the rest in peace I crave?
For years I sought enlightenment
On that high goal my aim was bent
But now that aim has slipped away
I wonder why?
The path of relating, the one that I chose,
Its the hardest path that anyone knows.
Hardly surprising I failed, I suppose.
I gave up.
What's left?