I've slept too long

      no more the slumber

      life's next song

      is springing to my ear--



      beauty will never do any wrong

      as bouquets of wonder she sets to gather

      with love and rejoicing in music's throng

      life doesn't die--it will live forever

About others we can sometimes be curious

but we should never be life-detectives -that's odious!

I wondered first as a child

I next wondered when I came to my youth

I wondered further in my middle-age

life was with me but it didn't often soothe



and now in my dying days

I wonder why I should have wondered

should have left behind the rude lacuna--

much of life borders upon the absurd

The doctor knows his medicine

but the heart he can't heal

life is hardly about reason

infinitely more about how to feel.

I am not out (truthfully)

for the trophy

that would indeed be

a ****** part of me

Do not seek in me

your image of what I am

I have flaws too many

for me to deny would be a sham-



come then, if me you can accept

come of your own free will, I should not implore

such that we would neither have cause to regret

and will cherish our affection more, much, much more

Do you remember
do you remember
that autumn day
when we first met
faraway by the gentle lake?

still was the water
silent were the trees
to me was your whisper:
I'll not forget
today's tender splendour
stay, oh stay
it's not sunset yet...

Now all alone
the lake is a reminder
of the day you've chosen
not to remember

yet I look
at the silent water
and your face
still does appear---

I'll walk away
and learn
not to remember