This poem came in a moment of discouragement, when I was imagining ,how much more I might have done with my many years, had I only set my mind to it. And wondering, whether I might have worked harder or faster, had I been more acutely aware of my own mortality. Such topics lend themselves to melodrama. So, sorry if I sound like a Victorian Romantic.
But then, the poem somehow devolved, to reflect the poignancy of a teacher’s comment, that I heard on the news today: That, even in the midst of a surge of Delta, masked children, happy to be back at school, had “smiling eyes.”
What if my days
Were at an end?
What if my dreams expired?
My sell-by date
Were here–what then?
What would my dreams require?
What if, while I’m
Pretending, just
Expending useless breath,
What if the sudden,
Thrust Of Fate
Should still my heaving breast?
What would I do?
What could I, from
That deeper, stiller realm
Of spirits,
Void of substance,
With no tiller at the helm?
So slow, to learn.
So slow, to act.
Yet quickly, Death approaches.
Existing, knowing
Death’s a fact,
We’re puzzled, when He poaches
Our finest game,
From forests, green,
Our sweetest, dearest fawns.
The harvest of
Their smiling eyes,
He sets His teeth upon.
Copyright 2021 Andrea LeDew
For poems in a similar vein read Carpe Diem and Compost.
No melodrama here, dear Andrea. Just a moving, beautifully crafted poem.