What joys, what torments, what treasures
does this new day bring?
I have left sleep behind,
fitful and unsettled as always,
with its strange images
and surreal conversations with the long dead,
conversations that make no sense.
As consciousness comes back to me,
I hear a tolling bell
calling the faithful to prayer
but I pay no heed
because I know my prayers,
if I had any,
would go unanswered.
Instead, what prayers I may have had
are given to the coffee cup
as I drain yet another
and swallow its bitter grounds
and draw on another cigarette,
taking its harsh smoke
deep into my lungs.
And even though it’s Spring
with the burgeoning of new life,
it is cool and a wind stirs the newborn leaves
and the sky remains dull and grey.
Fully awake now,
the familiar pains return.
Not just the physical
but also the ones in my mind
as I contemplate another day ahead,
mundane and alone.
But, if I were honest with myself,
the mundane satisfies me
and I relish being alone.
I put on some melancholy music
and lets its sad sentiment
flow over me, gentle, welcoming,
to keep my sombre mood
from falling too far into despair.
This state of mind
is all too familiar now
and I no longer try to push it away.
And every day I make a cursory effort
to stop myself from contemplating my remaining years
but acknowledging that all too few lie ahead.
Looking back,
I can recall from over those many years, many decades past now,
the memories I have
as a child,
as a youth,
as a man,
as a father.
I remember those memories fondly:
of people, too many now the ghosts I speak with in my dreams,
and of times when the future was so far beyond the distant horizon
that I didn’t give it a moment’s thought.
But now that once far-flung horizon looms ever closer
and where before I could contemplate
ten, twenty, fifty years hence,
now even a mere ten, twenty years from now
is uncertain and shrouded in a fog of unknowing.
It is with this mindset I face each day
and this new day is no different from yesterday’s
and will be again tomorrow,
and the next day,
and the days beyond that
until I reach that horizon.
And I dare not contemplate what lies beyond.
© 2025