Tag Archives: reflection

You Came to Hear: rondeau redoubled

The music that you came to hear:
a sonic bridge that helps you cross
some gulf of time no longer near,
or spend as a mere hour’s loss,

so in the maelstrom sound’s great fosse
you find your sorrows light to bear,
your jagged rocks made soft with moss,
the music that you came to hear?

What in these tunes allays your fears,
makes sunshine from an endless dross
and with a modicum of beer
a sonic bridge that helps you cross

in mirthful, bright and shiny gloss
from disconnection, felt so clear,
to friends who share a sense of loss:
some gulf of time no longer near.

And when at last the end appears:
last call, that winging albatross
whose warning bursts the happy sphere,
you’ve suffered a mere hour’s loss

and gained a bright and shiny gloss.
Now, when the new day’s dawn appears
and there may seem no way across,
you can reflect back in the mirror
the music that you came to hear.

05 MAY 2017

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Conversation with a Mirror

I said, “Before I write another word
and send it, helpless, out into the void,
I’d like to find a topic less absurd
than how the world leaves me only annoyed

when I encounter it each passing day;
it does not woo me as in years now past,
but hawks its wares draped in pale shades of gray
that only serve to say they will not last.”

To which my mirror self made this reply:
“‘Tis not the world that has ceased to inspire,
and let its palette’s spectrum fade and dry.
Who would lay blame to life is a poor liar,

that with a wish to leave their guilt unsung
would find the taste of even sugar sour;
and name the fault not in their wretched tongue,
but cast aspersions on some unnamed power

that in a cruel and senseless show of strength
could hold one tiny soul in such regard
to bother with its quality or length
and make that path alone bitter or hard.”

“Alas,” I then replied, “perhaps you’re right:
that life has lost its savour is my shame;
what effort I could make to end this plight,
I’ve left undone. Excuses? Mine are lame,

and make me out a victim, weak and tired;
they reek of indolence and wasted years,
when I, who was so proud to be inspired,
succumbed instead to ordinary fears.”

‘Twas then that my reflection gave a laugh
and whispered, “To admit that, is a start.
Now, write yourself a different epitaph;
and this time, don’t pretend to be so smart.”

22 MAY 2007

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Half a Score

This decade slipped by faster than the ones before;
the moments made of smaller, finer stuff.
The days turn into months, each year turns into four,
and often there just doesn’t seem to be enough

time to keep in focus where the journey leads,
time to find a balance between wants and needs,
time to ask the questions and await response.
Time slips into darkness, and you can’t retrieve it once
it’s gone.

Ten years of growing older and of changing dreams
while things once so important fade to gray.
Some visions turn to nightmares, and sometimes it seems
what you hold so tightly starts to slip away … in

time, that keeps on moving despite what you do,
time that heals all wounds and maybe makes a few,
time that marks our limits, fencing our lives in.
Time slips into darkness, and sometimes you never notice when
it’s gone.

A decade filled with finished tasks and things undone;
each milestone a new monument to change.
The actions and reactions pile up once begun,
and in the rear view mirror, look so strange.

Where does the time go, dissolving into empty space?
Do I have time enough, where do I stand in the race?
Is there some purpose for living in this time and place,
watching the lines in the mirror etched into my face?

Time for unlearning and learning again,
time for beginning to accept the end,
time for more dreams and for singing new songs.
Time slips into darkness, and the darkness doesn’t realize
it’s gone.

03 SEP 2003

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Retrospect

How clear the lens of retrospect
illuminates the distant past,
and brings in focus now, so fast,
foolish acts we’d rather neglect.

It is not always a kindness,
this sharpness of review;
one can easily misconstrue
an earlier bliss as blindness,

and waste so much precious time now
justifying a lack of sense
or imagining a defense,
forgetting not just when, but how

we came to learn from our mistakes.
What we are is what resulted;
and each time the fragile heart breaks,
future selves are not consulted.

No wonder then, this glass is so clear;
its academic and dry glare
sees history as cold and bare,
and stumbles forward, its eyes rear.

16 AUG 2003

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