As Time Goes On
As time goes on things change, we change,
And others change as well,
Which leaves us with these points of parting –
Roads that ‘separate for us in summer woods’;
We see our drift from anchors of our past,
Those many friends with whom we've walked a night or two.Mankind has always walked the roads and paths he's made,
Then built and walked some more,
Far from the lives of self and others we have known,
Into new worlds and lives far different from our past.I now recall the first I'd known who moved
So far away we'd likely never meet again;
She tought with me, yet to Australia
Went – for better life I guess.
We were not close, perhaps
Would never see her likes again –
Yet comfort there
That she was near –
She, half way to the
Generation up ahead,
Who let me into
Adult life – she
Was the first when
Others would
Not let me in.These marvels of our roads, and wires, and beams
Of message-bearing light and sound
Appear to be improvements to our lives,
Yet all the while our journeys
Split, and face-to-face we
Meet not once again.I've done it too, I guess,
As life has tumbled forward in its ways;
So few of friendships thus surviving
As we roll and tumble forward
Into life.So, friendship gets to be a choice,
Within this brave new world of our
Diverging paths –A choice to stay together in this sprawling land,
Stripped of its friendly people,
Where past friends reduce to bits of functionality;
And life stops being possible
As incomes fix and fall
Confining us to cells
Within those storage-homes
Awaiting death.
Then, when we can no longer hold our end
Of friendship high, through illness or old age;
And most of all our friends have passed away;
And newer people have their lives to live –
What then? – Just those we hire
To clean our bodies, feed
Thin gruel?
Till we as well
Move on and
Free our beds
For others coming up?So here, for me, for us, this motley cohort
Aging up – What then for us?
Do we forestall the end? avert the drop?
Thus save ourselves from dwindling
Quiet death?Or enter in, perhaps, to life – self-giving to the
Hearts that beat around us while we can?
I think we do not know what's down
The road for each of us,
Of good or ill
But journey onward
Quiet to our fate.navigation