This belongs to me, is all I have
Until I leave to face another trial
As memory wanders down the years
To glean some pickings as I rest awhile.
The slow measure of an aging mind
Turning the fertile furrows as it ploughs
And sees again in retrospect benign
The mingling of the sweet and bitter hours.
An age where there can be no pith or froth
To capture time-eroded creativity
Once possessed. But now in harmony
To see sought after aims futility.
Leaving expressions that once thought to learn
The lessons strewn along the way,
As were once tossed about the mind.
Or tried, then deferred, until another day.
What, you may ask, is this, and this alone
That is mine? Belongs to me and me alone?
Where can I begin to turn out the treasure trove
Before the hoard with passing time has flown?
Only the best is worth the time to share
My secret entry to childhood’s sunnier days
Where filtered memories are unaware
That time is not measured in adult ways.
The cycle wheels rotate along some country lane
The sunlight plays its games amidst the trees,
The working legs that test the muscle’s stretch
Not knowing that the mind will plan their ease.
With destination’s decision still unmade
As contentment never wants the day to end
While the flow of special, untapped thoughts
Anticipate what is around each bend.
The meadows, hills and wandering streams
Are like a taste of goodness that one holds
For so short a time, to relish avidly
Before some other, richer scene unfolds.
Until these much sought sights through which I go
And covert, as I covert no material thing,
Become a part of me, and I of them
To solace with fulfilling comfort bring.
When this occurres the effort is not felt,
A trance-like ease is wrapped around the state
Of motion through a landscape that will melt
The component parts into something infinite.
As I enter into some country town
Across a bridge, over the dividing stream
That has for centuries served to separate
The dwellings from the outside verdant green,
Then stop to rest the legs and have a draught
As, laid down on some easeful broom,
I watch a festive crowd enjoy a fete
Still pulsating in the late afternoon.
When shadows lengthen and the air is still
Sending the sound of human voices far,
I stretch at ease, am loathe to quit the scene
With music and some rural singing star.
But there are many miles to go
And from the sanctuary on where is lain
My rest, I mount my bike and, peddling slow,
Ride out again into an empty plain.
The muted human voices and the song
Linger awhile ’til I perceive the sun
In its last quarter, pushing along
Great shadows across which the wheels must run.
Over this desolate plain with no sights
To catch my gaze, other senses call
To tempt my mind into some inner flights
About the past day and the near nightfall.
Not yet knowing that one can only err
When seeking to recall some earlier thought
In quite the same way, as water differs
from day to day, in the same stream caught.
Such constant thoughts give way to musing mode
A flood unchecked that carries all before –
No cause and effect, only episode
To run and run seemingly evermore.
The dusk encloses me as in embrace
And bats flit round about the hidden trees;
Still on I go, the night scents brush my face
And all around are Nature’s mysteries.
There shine the distant lights where I will bide
Some homecoming place waiting there to greet
Me, that instinct true, will to this haven guide
My way there and a friendly welcome meet.
With one more stretch of this, my journey’s done
And feeling as one feels when sets the seal,
A harmony that suffuses me alone;
So this is life and this is how I feel.
July 2004