AS IT HAPPENS

It's not the life that, however

weakly, is in our flesh and bones

and mind, we should lament

and until the bitter end regret;

that was ours to waste and

dispose as we saw fit; if nothing

good would come out of it,

a small pity, and little else.

It's the lives we have touched,

however briefly, however lightly

- and so often, they know, more -

and turned from their correct path,

or did nothing and just gazed, all

promise left unfulfilled in endless

waiting, and what they have done

to themselves, that's what we

must regret and lament until

the bitter end, theirs and ours.

For we had no right to step in

and derail one, and left another

without aid. When we should

have acted, we pondered and denied,

when we should have let them go

without our interfering hand,

we stept forward, hailing. That,

again and again, through the long

and winding, drab decades, one life

touched, malignly, after another,

in a foul succession of errors.

We had no right, and yet we

did, one mistake honest, another

less, until this bitter end.

23.03.2023

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