Swept Away

By John Herlihy

A wise adage suggests there is a thing we never miss;

No one is accused of failing when ignorance is bliss.

We live all our lives within a set of fixed conditions;

Ambitions drive us on and we stand by our convictions.

But the knowledge of impending death has much to say;

Swiftly, its broom sweeps the path to the future away.

For many years, I lay in ignorance of what may come;

My days ambled forth, like a train laboring under the sun.

The future informed the present with its mystery and hope,

Though it still hadn’t arrived, the future held incredible scope.

Now the future stands before me like a lonely spectral ghost,

Inviting me into its yawning abyss like an overeager host.

Soon enough body, broom, and path will all be swept away,

Falling leaves in autumn at the mercy of forceful wind at play.