Upper class
middle class
low class

measured
by wealth
inheritance
education?

I'm a humanist
hence
humanity is my class

no distinction
do I trust

Life's inevitability-
old age
I accept
I don't rage

others are upset
they debate-
with beauty and wonders
I engage

time is tyrannical
often it does berate
I look askance
the day I celebrate


aside I've willingly set
every grievance and regret -
when the final chime strikes
I'll ready to embark on the passage

The mind proposes
the heart opposes

Imagination
is either constructive
or arid
but many
can't distinguish -
deeper they sink
into its labyrinth
and are unconscious
their pursuit is sterile
and unproductive

it's hard
and often impossible
to step back
or retrieve

yet they cling on-
so strong
is their attachment
and belief

I can't write
like Keats or Shakespeare
a simple note, there and here
will adequately endear-

I can't sing like Luciano
Carreras or Domingo
' Happy birthday' and ' Home, sweet home'
will make my heart glow-

I can't climb Mount Everest
nor sail the wildest sea
but I can take part in a 5 mile walk
it will make me really happy-

I can't be like
Napoleon or Genghis Khan
but my duty I shirk not
my best is yet to be done!

I change
or I'll wither

human I am-
to myself alone
I belong
to none other

I'm what I am
because I change-
if people don't
that'd be truly strange

it's moving ahead
to meet odds
and every challenge
I might not achieve
but not changing
is to be enslaved

I'll not be the same
but from others
and life
I'd not be estranged

no tricky game
I'm playing
only myself *******
to a new enlarged stage.

Who dares say
self-pity is unhealthy?
The sufferer bleeds
known to nobody:

the self looks at itself
as none other ever could
the depth that devours it
the pain that nothing can soothe

the world is other people
each unto their own, steeped
beyond that carved boundary
it doesn't care to look or peep

who has the authority
to say self-pity is unhealthy?
When into hard times that person falls
he will hold on to it---so very tightly!