The Living End

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

It’s so corny, but so true. Love lasts forever. Yes, even when it doesn’t turn out quite as we may have hoped. All that love passes on to us, in drawing on the better side of human nature to make us a better person, we pass on to others in our turn, knowingly or unknowingly, thereby contributing to life's continuum since the beginning of time, and beyond.

Now, I was able to spend far too little time with the love of my life, and it was a long time ago. Yet, but for that time together before he was killed in a road accident abroad, growing old alone would be a very lonely affair. I live alone, but have some good friends and the love of my life is always there for me, too, whenever I need someone to turn to, especially in the early hours when the world is asleep and the darker side of human spirit would taunt us with those aspects of life and relationships best forgotten.

If time flies, the great thing about love is that it, too, has wings and can keep up where we mortals invariably fall behind.

THE LIVING END

World, collapsing all around;
skylark, winging without a sound;
sweeter memories like a kite
tugged free from weepy hands
at nature’s whim

Bright lights in the eye grown dim;
candles of a mind
to flicker like shadows on a blind;
mischievous sunshine joining ghosts
in hide-and-seek

Suddenly, sounds of children
playing in the park invade my dark,
and the laughter of lovers
gathering to watch, share dreams
of a future together

And where are you, but here?
And who am I but a fool in despair
to let you drift like a lost kite
tugged free from weepy hands
at nature’s whim?

Let a light in eyes dimming
flare again, a beacon  guiding us
across time and space,
all we were and are made keepers
of its flame

Heading home ...

Copyright R. N. Taber 2004; 2013

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004.]