No New Order of Things

No new order of things had been instituted

Not likely that there would be

Father’s things were gone from his life

After being placed there by the human factory.

Exchanged a word or two

With the clerical crew

They wanted to find out the truth

I suppose – concerning one of their ‘brothers’.

From father’s life we tried to piece together a few old remembrances

But they broke off abruptly at the time he suddenly went away

He had already removed them

Except for loose thoughts – all incomprehensible to an outsider.

Nothing of value, particularly nothing elaborated is in existence

The memories died along with him

As he lay in the coffin, sweeter, milder and lovelier –

Then any of us remembered him.

It was very apparent what a mastermind he was

But he ceased to think when his brain sank into eternal rest

Now someplace else

Due to the unfairness of hampering strictures.

Circumstances beyond our control

Are equipped to exhibit a mighty scope of powerful influences

Their secrecy exacted by ‘business-like’ competition –

Blocking any outside interference when running the gambit.

"Oh, your father was looking forward to this,

it signaled his emancipation from life’s chains,

made so irksome by others,

his last payment was to be made to us, so to speak – his resignation."

"Oh, don’t worry, he can now devote his time fully,

to the literary elaboration of his vast earthly experience,

for secrecy will no longer bound him,

he will reap from the recognition of wider circles – an unvarying devotion

to heavenly duties."

Could this be true ? I asked myself

Did life really begrudge him?

Was he cruelly denied by a particular removal from enjoyment’s activities?

Was this the worst harrowing of father’s pathetic life’s circumstances.?

For the sake of his happiness, which he should have found in his daily tasks,

and which should have outweighed much of his previous misery,

we now owe a deep grudge against the hand of fate,

and the ignorant human elements that abetted its pitiful forwardness.

Father was confident that he would live to eighty-three

And that it was not natural for a busy man

To talk explicitly on any subject before it was fully exhausted

And one should be allowed to follow it into its full leisure.

But, the general weakening of his heart was greater than anyone knew

Including himself, and the time came long before – twenty years before

Father died in full consciousness, but totally ignorant of the weariness of death

He simply fell asleep and all was over.

Without pain, without fear, only very tired

His rosy face and beautifully serene expression bore this out

He seemed asleep in perfect health and calm, as if in a dream

Mother told us of the way to remember him.

 

Copyright © 2007 R. Lance Sheridan