It beats us all, eventually, Time's river,
this ever-rolling stream of hymn and prayer,
that soaks our words and chills our bones
and relentlessly bears us each away.
We bought the stories, some of us, and tried,
set fast against that torrent of trends which
tears from roots and carries the lost
to distant shores, gasping, floundering,
to new beginnings and differing courses,
far from home and Innocence's vital spring.
Yes, vain, we were, and selfish, weighing
constancy and challenge and erring
- as we're wont to do - on the side of our
most loyal friend: Caution, who smiles an
easy charm and soft seduction and
keeps us paddling in the shallows,
damming us with verse and fables
as deeper waters pass us by.
And safe it was, until, worn down by loss
and urgent, last ambition's flow,
it fell: this sturdy refuge that we
built across the years from safety
in the past made present, from
ways that we were taught to be.
Then, too late, we realise we
might have carved a different way
to reach those secret, glittering seas where
ours are the dreams that would dive and swim.
YOU ARE READING
Fragments And Reflections
PoetryPoems looking at everything and anything not in my other collections. Here you'll find life and time, wild oceans and lonely coast paths, busy streets and empty hotel rooms, wild concerts and late night writing. All just fragments and reflections, l...
