'Lives Lived'

Autumn is Inevitable

 

Life is far more behind me

Than it is ahead of me.

How is it that when I finally understand

That I am a mere vapour

Or drop of dew that quickly fades,

I am become the one I never imagined.

 

How is it that like all youth

I longed to be older?

Assuming the callow fallacy

That doing as I pleased

Was freedom.

Childhood seemed a cage

That withheld me from my dreams,

Until I learned maturing

Bore the fetters of responsibility and onus

And the dreams of youth were worn away and

Forgotten like long lost toys.

 

I have had my spring when everything

Was new and bright until

The luminous sun lessened the

Shadows of summer until the first traces

Of the inevitable autumn.

 

No longer adorned by youth, I know

Vanity is vanity,

Though allure had its day.

Green eyes still stare back at me

When I gaze at some mirror,

But gravity is a law

That judges all.

Grooves and furrows are begun

Though not yet the corrugation

That imprints the very aged.

 

The proud strides of youth

Will become a shuffle

The far seeing eyes

Will lose their focus

The lustrous hair,

Thin and gossamer wisps.

 

I do wonder as I have been warned I would,

Whether I have been

Worthy of the years I have been allotted.

I was warned that the things

I could never undo or unsay

Would be replayed in my mind like shadows.

Who needs grace

More than the old?

 

Until everything stops,

And everything fades,

And I breathe my last,

And there is eternity.

 

C.Hill, 2021

 

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- Praia Grande, Portugal -

Done