I didn’t want to leave you, but I didn’t have a choice.
I’m sorry that I hurt you. I know it seemed I didn’t care, or that I left
  in anger,
But when I died I mourned for you, the way you mourned for me.
And now I’m here, not far or near, but just around the corner on a path that goes one way.

I dream sometimes that I’ve gone back, and have another year with
   you,
Or maybe just another day, with time to say I love you and time to
  say goodbye.
But that’s a dream, I can’t go back,
And all that I can promise is my love will keep me waiting here
Until you turn the corner and I see you once again.

"Birth, and copulation, and death.
That’s all the facts when you come to brass tacks:  
Birth, and copulation, and death.”*

But though he repeated them twice,
Those aren’t all the facts when you
 come to brass tacks,
Eliot left out a line:

Somewhere between copulation and death,
When you’re well along, but not near
  your last breath,
You find that the facts when you come to brass tacks are
Ice, ibuprofen and time,
My friend,
Ice, ibuprofen and time.

               


*T.S. Eliot, from Sweeney Agonistes.

You might think that by now I’d have
The fruits of my maturity—
Good judgement and some dignity
The wisdom of my years—
And doing really stupid things
Would now have no appeal to me
My lessons learned,
My hard earned wisdom paid for with my tears.

But you’d be wrong.

The cats suspect that there’s a mouse
I think at first, a catnip toy…
The black cat sees the toy and grins…
And bats a mouse that rolls, then runs… then rolls again… and then
   they run
Behind a chair… The cat appears… and there’s the mouse,
He has it hanging from his mouth,
He puts it down… he has it pinned…
And then I see it run again.

I’m kind of sorry for the mouse, but after, all this is our house,
And cats see mice as natural prey. They really should just stay away
And learn to cope with life outside. But since it pressed its luck
   within,
I’m rooting for our cat to win.

Another chase, another pin… completely still…is this the end?
Well, no… he lets it go again.
The mouse heads for the cellar door, there’s safety on the basement floor
A blocking move! As good as dead? Another joke…the mouse has
   fled.
The cats give chase, but that’s the end. The mouse is hiding out again.

I notice that no blood’s been shed. Perhaps because the cat’s well fed,
The claws that tear cat toys to shreds have not appeared to slash his
   prey.
I guess that’s for another day, the drama here was just some play,
But now the traps are on the way.

Sometime in a quantum flux, a particle imagined us,
Thought creation worth a fling, and threw the dice to start this thing.

A particle that thinks it’s God? I know that sounds a little odd,
But even worse, it has a vice, a particle that plays with dice.

I don’t think there’s a God except
  I’ve sometimes felt Transcendence.

I might believe in God except
  When we’re alone, we’re wired to project,

To think that someone’s over there
  Somewhere that we can’t see. Except:

We don’t see sound and we don’t hear light
  However loud, however bright,
 
So maybe it’s perception,
  Not projection,

One more connection,
   Outside of space and time,

One more direction,
  At right angles to the rest.

And when we turn down light and sound,
  And wait with no one else around,

Then reach out with a quiet mind,
  Perhaps it’s really God we find.

The thought I meant to write
was lovely and serene, but gone
before I found the words to make it stay.

Perhaps it had the wrong address, was meant
for someone else and fled, embarrassed to be seen
instead by me;

Or maybe it was floating free
And somehow blundered into me
But barely made a dent and didn’t stay;

Or it could have been a wayward dream
Stranded on this side of sleep
Waiting for the night to slip away;

Most likely just a thought of mine,
But one I couldn’t grasp in time,
And remember as the thought that got away.