Brightening Rings

 

My seventieth year, and my new second spring,

Life’s closed endless circle and natures bright ring,

Its here I have written and here I have wrought,

Have built up and rendered and salvaged and sought.

 

I have reached to the age when my late father died,

I’m recalling his passing, the tears that I cried,

The unspoken words that are streams of regret,

The patterns of life that my actions have set.

 

I cannot recall any year that was sad,

I took from them all both the good and the bad,

I had riches aplenty felt poverty too,

As the bonds of experience strengthened the glue.

 

I look at my children those wondering wise,

I’m the father of two yet the father of lies,

A poet and scribbler, a mountebank’s bard,

And the truth in my living is hitting me hard.

 

In all life’s been good to me, singular, bold,

I’ve known of great passion its heat and its cold,

I have given of substance and gathered my hoard,

But never acknowledged vile mammon as lord.

 

Possessions don’t matter they’re dross in a heap,

We only need food and a warm place to sleep,

The dogs that I’m keeping perhaps have it right,

With one meagre meal and some shelter at night.

 

Of course I don’t advocated poverties track,

But the monk and the hermit have little to lack,

I admire in extent all the things I can’t be,

And admire in extent where the living is free.

 

But freedom like slavery calls at some cost,

We are bound to exclusion when liberties lost,

Where poverty, sadness and lust leave their mark,

The reasons for living stand brazen and stark.

 

We live as we must and endure to prevail,

We conquer like emperors failing to fail.

We hoard up a treasure that mountain of dross,

But anointed by envy we can’t see the loss.

 

And then in the dimming we stand on the ledge,

As the suicide stands on the precipice edge,

Looking back on a life that was stony or lush,

With the devil just waiting to give us a push.

 

But then we look forward with hope for today,

Our epilogue very much part of our play,

A banquet prepared for us fit for the king,

And we are the working of natures bright ring.