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Ramblings
Of An Old Fool
As
I walk up and down On
the streets of my home town And
through aisles and corridors Of
shops and department stores, I
see people rushing around And
hear the bustle and the sound That
they make on their way In
the pursuit of the day. And
my tired and failing eyes View
each of these passer byes As
a candle that shines about And
then flickers and burns out. And
yet they seem unaware, Or
perhaps they just don’t care, About
the ultimate fate That
awaits them at death’s gate. In
my mind's eye I see them all As
skeletons, some short others tall, Which
move or stand around waiting, Just
piles of dust in the making. Fools!
Do they ever think of tomorrow? Do
they grasp the meaning of sorrow? That
sorrow that comes with knowing That
life’s essence is only out-flowing? From
birth we begin to die, And
from the time of our first cry We
all, the coward and the brave, Start
on the journey to the grave. In
the pursuit of the daily bread We
all seem to forget the thread That
links the beginning to the end And
which has no curve or back bend. Ah!
How ironic it is to celebrate Year
in and year out the birth date Of a child, or anyone, as if ‘t was our wish To
speed him towards the finish. What’s
the point of propagation Given
that the final destination Amounts
to nothing more than dirt Or
ash mingled with a pair of pants, or a skirt? Perhaps
I shouldn’t see things as I do Nor hold such a cynical view on life, it's true. Maybe
I should just live from day to day And
not look that far along the way, And
just follow life’s twists and bends Without
a thought of how and where it ends. But
then that would not be me And
I’d loose what little autonomy I
still have, and should I be asked to try I’d
have to say, “No can do! Not I.” Empangeni,
July 2002 |