Living  the  question


                                                 I

                        The  years are  passing  with  astounding  speed              
                        and  each one carries less and less of worth
                        so that more and more their heavy burdens  tire
                        both flesh and spirit; soon I must succumb
                        at last to the constant battering demand
                        to pay the price for all the years I've bought.

                        Of  course there's every reason I should tire.
                        Some parts of life I've lived at hectic speed;
                        or most of my youth indeed, where the demand
                        to fulfill  the moment required I  gave full worth
                        to every second that I  dearly bought
                        before to its toll I felt myself succumb.

                        And now the clock has made its own  demand:                              
                        its hands display, cross, chase and never tire,
                        steadily inexorable, never to be bought;
                        never to change that all-consuming speed
                        nor to my blandishings let itself succumb
                        discounting them as nothing much of worth.
  
                        And others too, have with me dearly bought
                        false goods conventional standards all demand               
                        before to that vilification they succumb:
                        that game of which society does not tire
                        raising in its eyes its own suppos`ed  worth  
                        and damning others with unconscionable speed.
                                                              
                        So many of those others unwillingly  succumb;
                        their times, like mine, with heavy pains were bought
                        and yet, while with me, they showed forth their worth
                        providing a friendship I could happily demand,
                        at any moment and with all due speed;
                        but even they, towards the end, must tire.
 
                        A splendid comity,  they showed their worth.
                        Now gone, just as all good things succumb
                        to passing time's fatiguing clockwork speed ;
                        but there were vital moments when they bought
                        random moments,  which I will never tire
                        of summoning, at memory's demand.
   
                        I will  rejoice at life's demand ; there was a worth
                        not to succumb to pains which memories bought 
                        nor now  will the clock's  speed make me truly tire.


                                                                   
                                               II

                        There passed those several years throughout my youth
                        when all that mattered was what I could seize;
                        when every moment contributed to the present
                        so that I only ever needed to decide
                        upon that immediate moment's single wish.
                        Around me resolved a pattern, composed, complete.

                        The perspective now in this swiftly changing present
                        shows what is different since that  flagrant  youth: 
                        some of the overt projects are now complete          
                        and no more is there a desire to rashly seize   
                        on the thought of accomplishing each immediate wish.
                        Instead,  acceptance of the hesitation to decide.

                        One day the circle's wheel may be complete,            
                        revolving from the past to become the present,        
                        in choosing to live again a casual wish
                        that had been left behind in a careless youth;
                        from what had been too much choice to decide
                        experience could now direct which part to seize.

                        But what time is left to fulfil the errant wish
                        abandoned long ago before it  was complete?
                        Not single wishes passed,  but many;  how to decide       
                        what confident face to the future could one present
                        knowing exactly what to adjudge and seize
                        to obliterate the follies of errant youth?

                        Matterless now the course that I decide,
                        irrelevant now the outcomes one could wish.              
                        I reach out and do my best to seize 
                        the fragments to integrate and to complete;
                        to glue those pieces of past and long gone youth
                        into a mosaic to make sense of the present.

                         And all those shattered fragments that I seize  
                         may in the end convince me to decide    
                         that all mistakes that I had made in youth,
                         all future hopes and everything I wish
                         can come together in a rounded present
                         and make that pattern firmer, more complete.
  
                         I bring  them to my present; I must decide
                         if each complete or even half-formed wish
                         will re-integrate a pattern, from youth,  to seize.


                                                III
                                                                                       
                         And while the years swept on without a pause
                         I sought to  join with others who were  willing
                         to disregard my consciousness  of  guilt:                                   
                         but continued self-evaluation would  restrict
                         any chance of openness; would perplex
                         myself as well, denying a way to convert

                         my mind towards the rejection of the guilt
                         that has for ages assailed me without pause.
                         It had become too easy  to perplex                        
                         myself, proving beyond doubt I was not willing
                         to allow the rational to take me and convert
                         me from established attitudes that restrict.                       
              
                         It does not  take  great matters  to perplex
                         or to drive an eager participant to guilt;
                         the shortest moment will the simplest act convert
                         from the brightest course of action to a pause,
                         and will with indecision halt and restrict,
                         no matter what completion one is willing.         

                         And so I am beginning slowly to convert
                         the anger derived from the matters that perplex,
                         that tie me down irresolute, and restrict
                         my journeying on the twisted paths of guilt,
                         to diverge from which I would be fully willing
                         if only consequence did not give me pause.

                         I rage within against the others who restrict
                         all that I would desire to be, who convert 
                         the times when I would be wholly willing 
                         to avoid the situations where I might perplex
                         both them and their values ; who never pause 
                         to rationalise this concept of my guilt.

                         And so I find myself no longer willing                                        
                         to leave the past to rest and let myself restrict
                         the feeling that before would make me pause;
                         unwilling now in taking chances to convert
                         into acceptance what had once been guilt 
                         and now is something that can just perplex.

                         I doubt that I will pause to be a convert
                         to  hazards that restrict all chances to perplex                     
                         but, willing, remain for all my time in my shell of guilt.


                                                IV

                         Throughout  the  years  it  had  never been my intention
                         to seek deliberately for some  deep revelation
                         but to let time pass, and to do no more than trust
                         that the warp and weft of life, made ragged
                         by the indiscriminate mix of joys and anger
                         would settle itself without my separate volition.

                         And so it was in chance that I put my trust   
                         and left living to its fire and flux with no intention
                         to force the Fates to any kind of anger
                         by demanding an overt kind of revelation
                         they would not provide me of their own volition,
                         though the pattern I evolved was thinly ragged.   
                      
                         Never sure that mine was a righteous anger
                         I learned but slowly that I should not trust            
                         to distinguish between compulsion and volition;
                         never being sure of right in an intention
                         conceived in the hope of repairing the ragged
                         ends of life providing  full revelation.
 
                          But gradually there arose a new volition
                          to replace the rents in the fabric made by anger;
                          banners that had for years flown torn and ragged
                          were raised again, to re-establish trust
                          that came to be, without special revelation     
                          and even without a recognised intention.

                          The tatters of self-belief, once torn and ragged
                          have come together as if by their own volition
                          and brought with them a newer revelation
                          replacing the iron bands with which deep anger
                          had restricted every  growing good intention,
                          building now a foundation of broader trust. 

                          So the passing years brought me the revelation    
                          that I could mend what had been tattered, ragged
                          to move forward now with every good intention,
                          confident in acting under my own volition,
                          following a growing pattern I could trust
                          while accepting any failures without anger.

                          With the revelation of remaining time I will trust
                          volition to grow into a firm intention
                          to control my ragged days, relieved of anger.