4.10.07

Some day,
we will peer back
at the reflected stranger,
and wonder when we stopped looking
like the pictures in our head.

And we will find ourselves
waiting by a moving stair,
patiently hoping for a little lull
in which to take our turn
and move on to nowhere.

Some day,
we will try and understand
the things that are changing the world,
but after nodding in quiet bewilderment, slink away
to put on the songs we have always loved.

And we will make up our minds
to rise up again and match our best,
but the body we will be lugging around
will sink back for a little more rest.

Some day,
we will sit down,
just for a while,
to rest our feet as the world flows hastily by,
and when we look up,
a year will have gone by.

And we will find ourselves
pottering away,
with all the time to live our lives,
but little life left to live them in.

Some day,
we will be of an age
to know ourselves to be aged.

9 comments:

Revealed said...

I refuse to carry the burden of your melancholia. I reject it. I shall write a disgustingly cheerful post! Soon's I've risked the deathly cold waters of my shower.

??! said...

Give in flaffy, give in. Be all wistful and sigh-y. Think of all the hot showers in the world and sulk. Give in, I say.

The Bride said...

That was beautiful... Just a critical word - I think it would work better without the last two lines. The idea is powerfully suggested anyway without stating it overtly

??! said...

bride:
you have a point. I'll come back to it in a day and see.

Anonymous said...

I liked the last two lines. To be truly melancholic you need the last two lines. My tuppence worth :D

-Revealed

??! said...

ok baba, it's altered. there, is everybody happy now? no more public voting now.

on_trial said...

Nice... I wrote something along the same lines a while back...

http://need-space.blogspot.com/2006_08_01_archive.html

though I think you expressed it better. Although, to be fair, mine was motivated by a fit of peevishness mostly :)

on_trial said...

Oh, I forgot the reason I commented in the first place. It was to ask you what the original two lines were that you ended with???

??! said...

on trial:
Thank you. and welcome.

Umm...the line, the lines...oh yes -

Some day
...we will be old.