Yesterday I was eighty nine
\nAnd today, carrying my shopping home
\nAcross the Recreation Ground
\nOn a bright November day
\nIn a pondering frame of mind,
\nI could be someone else, but was here.
\nThe molecules and atoms that make me, me,
\nAnd lead me to think and feel as I do
\nAre worth more than a passing thought;
\nThey are the great mystery of life
\nAnd whilst I can never know
\nHow all this came to pass,
\nI am free to wander through or round the building blocks
\nThat are my foundation as with everyone else.
\nIs there a thin membrane
\nSeparating us from the knowledge?
\nOr a different time dimension,
\nA different space dimension,
\nA different energy physics
\nThat made the thought as unlikely
\nAs an ant out-staring the sun?
\nHow do my atoms make me feel as I do?
\nOr feel at all? How do my molecules
\nLet me do calculations in my head?
\nI don’t know; but what I do know
\nIs that I do these things
\nAnd wonder about them as I do.
\nSoon I will not be able to say
\n‘Ursula died last year,’ as last year
\nPassing made me change from,
\n‘Ursula died this year.’
\nCalculating then feeling, feeling then calculating
\nThey cannot be separated
\nBecause one cannot exist without the other;
\nAt least, not in the physical World we are in.
\nForm and content, cause and effect;
\nAll thoughts I love, or am easy with.
\nHow do I explain my feelings
\nFor the great life bonding?
\nGod knows, I have made so many attempts to do so,
\nAll to produce puny and inadequate results.
\nPossibly one must be labelled as mad
\nBefore one can achieve an ultimate in thought and feeling
\nAnd do I\u00a0 want to go so far without security of result?
\nOr could I even if I wanted to?
\nOf course not, you are pre-destined
\nAnd if that means something or nothing
\nWill be for you to decide.
\nThe thoughts have accompanied me to my front door,
\nOnce our home, now my home, empty but home.
\nShe would recognise it as such.
\nSince the day she left that August, eternity bound,
\nIt’s fifteen months now and her ashes are upstairs,
\nWill not be be moved until the year two thousand and fourteen
\nTo where they will await mine,
\nReturned to atoms and molecules;
\nThey won’t have a grieving heart,
\nNor hope, nor love, nor anything we understand as life
\nBut ashes to ashes, dust to dust
\nWe can’t resist so comply we must.<\/p>\n
November 2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday I was eighty nine And today, carrying my shopping home Across the Recreation Ground On a bright November day In a pondering frame of mind, I could be someone else, but was here. The molecules and atoms that make … Continue reading