The other day,
in a waiting room
of a medical scanning
centre, I saw two
elderly ladies. One
went in for her scan
while the other waited
anxiously. When she came
out they held hands,
talking quietly and
seriously about what
had been done,
been said, staring into
each other’s eyes.
Then they left
and through the
window I could see
a fervent embrace,
before they moved on,
arms around each
other, providing comfort,
very much in love.
Every New Year’s
Eve, we say to
ourselves – “Well
I hope next year
is better than this
year”. But, as every
New Year’s Day
rolls through the door,
we realise it was
probably
a forlorn hope
I am
breathing in,
breathing out,
like all the other
living creatures
sharing this planet
and this air.
But more,
that air has been
shared by all the creatures
who ever lived,
been refreshed by
all the plants
that ever grew,
since the beginning
of Earth time.
Each new breath
combines all the
old breaths of creatures,
and people, long gone.
Each breath is a kind
of immortality,
existing long after
each of us has
taken our last breath,
passed on to each of
us taking our
first breath
Approaching 74
and every ache,
every niggle, every
unexplained twitch
in the night,
presages doom and
a twinkle in an
undertaker’s eye.
Half way through 73
and sour memories
bubble up like methane
in Lake Baikal, erupt
randomly like black
mud in Rotorua, old
regrets seem once
again possible triumphs,
old grievances can
once again cut the psyche
like a knife.
Getting close to
my seventy third Xmas
and counting again
all the gifts I have
been given over
this amazingly long
time. Love, and
friendship, and
life itself.
Impossible to
decide which season
would be best to die in:
Summer with its heat
and blue skies;
Autumn with
hints of frost and snow;
Winter with the warmth
of hearth and home:
Spring with flowers
and promise of flowers.
But whichever I choose
I would be desolate not to
see the following one.
I have never
had, in a long life
of creating ideas,
and things, a serious
review of any of it. No
serious consideration
of what was attempted,
what were the problems,
what was achieved.
But then you don’t get that
for your life itself
I suppose,
Strange, I guess,
how reluctant humans
are to accept that the
world managed quite
well without them before
they were born, and will
manage just as well
after they die.
Strange too, I suppose,
that in a world where
all organisms die, after
one day for a Mayfly, or
five thousand years for
a Bristlecone Pine,
humans are so resistant
to accepting their own
death as a natural part
of life on Earth.
It is as well that the dead
cannot feel disappointment
for if they could there
would by now have been
billions of disappointed
corpses.
Oh for heavens sake
how can it already be
nearly the end of
twenty eighteen?
The years are flashing
past faster than that
rock from another star
that whizzed through our
solar system to fast to be
properly observed
How many millions
of words have I
written?
Half a million in
one book alone,
other millions
scattered from one
end of my life to
the other.
It would be nice
to think one or two
will be remembered,
else why did I bother?
Probably
just as well
you can’t spend
an hour with
teachers last seen
sixty years ago.
