In the gathering of life that you found
floating upon some Danish river of time,
you’ve found it wasn’t really fair,
either to you, yourself alone, or to your others,
all the ones that come to you in memories vision
And no, it wasn’t fair,
and even though you were always taught that it
would somehow come out right,
it doesn’t always do that very thing;
it doesn’t always work, it doesn’t always weave
the pattern of magic anticipated,
believed and somehow earned by heaven,
by the sweat and tears of growing towards something promised, rarely delivered
In the gathering of life, time invokes a special caution
to all who would venture upon the full truth line
from here to there;
a warning never seen except in retrospect:
“Look, sugar; I‘m not as sweet as your dreams,” she says bluntly. “And I have no special obligations to you or to your ideas, your dreams, however transplendent they may seem to you. In a hundred years you’ll be dust,
and nothing more than a passing memory to time.”
And in the gathering of life you learned it;
yes, you paid your dues,
you paid the price of wisdom;
you‘ve seen the movie before and it wasn’t fair
when she died,
it wasn’t fair for Juliet when her lover misunderstood
and drank from that carpenter’s grail,
and it wasn’t fair for any of us
when she lost him in Dallas,
and it wasn’t fair when that plane crashed
into Los Gatos Canyon with twenty-eight farmworkers,
all just trying to get ahead,
all just trying to feed their families
And no, it wasn’t fair when you lost your heart on that sweet young kid of twenty-two who promised you so much,
and then left with someone else’s hurt.
But then again, you know it’s been
said before, it’s all been written in the book
Your parents lied to you;
it wasn’t their intention, just a certain
lack of wisdom that kept them from explaining it
better than they did;
and that’s not their fault,
it’s just life and life only—
And you‘ve climbed the rope ladder so far now
that it seems such a waste to let it all go,
So you keep on keeping on, not unlike everybody else,
and it doesn’t seem enough somehow,
but you don’t have any more answers to the question
time brings to you each morning
And Yosemite is still the most beautiful place on earth,
except it’s filled with too many people,
and so you don’t go.
And New York is still the brightest star,
And France still calls you to an ageless time and place
But you haven’t got the time or the money,
and it’s not fair because you’re still young,
and from all you’ve ever known or seen of Paris
in movies or in books—there is a city that should be enjoyed
when you’ve still got that feeling, that worthwhile excitement
of youth
and love
and life everlasting
In the gathering of life you’ve found,
it wasn’t always fair, no;
it’s just better than death, that’s all.
so make the most of it kid,
you’ve only got one shot;
you’re allowed plenty of mistakes,
but not a single error of entitlement
In the gathering of life there is no good or evil,
just the living of it;
and in the living of life, the wisdom found
That and love,
mixed with a night or two of laughter,
sometimes, along the way...
In the gathering of life
we have not yet wandered far enough, you and I;
these recollected livings spring forth
like visions from phrases inscribed upon
that parchment of sinew, bone, and hollow
which describes the persons that we are,
the music we must speak, the angst and joy we feel—
in these trees, this river, this city,
and along the keel of life within us
And in this, we can rejoice with our lives,
and in our supplications simply be that which we are;
vagabond traveler, hesitant partaker, confused lover,
sometime stranger to these here parts
In the gathering of our lives we have survived,
integrated with life and death only unto ourselves;
for we are the Jack of Diamonds, falling gracefully to earth
from a careless god’s sleeve.
In the gathering of life that I have found,
there is love;
and not only love, but sometimes,
if you’re very lucky
crackers in bed
and smiles like roses
and then everything else fades
quickly to grey,
on a rainy winter’s night.
🔹
In the gathering of life
we have probably wandered far enough,
you and I;
our lives entwined like
the music we must speak, the angst and joy we feel
in these trees, this river, this city,
and along that keel of life within us.
Call me sentimental,
I’ve yearned for great and simple wonders
left behind by word or gesture;
a moment found on a summer evening,
a look, a glance, a picket fence,
a touch of music felt from a look in someone’s eyes
resting on me like bruised wine I could get lost in by gazing into.
In the gathering of life like winter flowers,
I walked midnight streets seeking rainfall;
simple rain, drizzling down rain,
and took photographs
reflecting the conditions of being
and in supplication simply became that which was me:
vagabond traveler, hesitant partaker, confused lover,
sometime stranger to these here parts
In the gathering of life I have survived,
integrated with life and death only unto myself;
for I am the Jack of Hearts, falling gracefully to earth
from a careless lover’s sleeve
But somehow in all of this, I heard laughter
ringing out above the smell of death;
I turned to look and it was me,
winking one great knowing eye,
the most important thing I’ve done.
For without the humor of it
I would have had
none of the learning
and without the learning of it
there would be no you or I
but just remembrance of a life spent
and that’s just not who I became.
So it’s the good stuff
I’ll take from here,
all those battlegrounds and yesterdays
and hoped-for tomorrows and
unrealized best intentions;
I may have stumbled, I didn’t fall,
and love, like wind in a sail,
was at my back.
🔹