Had we but opportunity, and time,
this wanton indolence would be no crime.
We could choose at length, how best to earn our crust,
an inchoate passion, an absolute must.
Ten thousand happy hours spent on traditional grip,
cross stitching, flat-picking or mastery of whip.
Virtuosity would be in our reach,
if inane mundanity did our lives not breach.
In time I would acquire a second language or two,
with a year in each country, just to absorb the milieu.
And in those dwellings embrace their distinctive cuisine,
the sautée and flambé, their palette pristine.
The costume and customs, an utter immersion.
The nuance, their pastimes, a total conversion.

But all around us, we see and hear the seconds fly,
as sands of vast desserts run the hourglass dry.
No lifetime well spent to study: a celestial passion -
that universal canopy, always constant, in fashion.
No time to render from it, a purpose, some meaning.
Or just gaze in stupor, in splendorous feeling.
That desire to leave an insight, impart some great reason;
comes to nought, bears no fruit, the ultimate life’s treason.

Now therefore, while your middle age is sailing on,
and your youthful hue is virtually gone.
And while your dreams, your hopes, are yet expired,
and still inside you lie latent fires.
Now let us cast off life’s binding shackles,
dispose of ignorance and apathy that so raise my hackles.
Let us become coherent, aware of the important,
eschew the trivial and seize the moment.
Dispose of the superfluous, the fleeting sensation,
embrace the devout and devour the vocation.
Thus, though we cannot live our lives afresh,
yet we can ensure life’s iron cogs still mesh.