- A Sense of Finality -

By John Herlihy

In childhood:

All of life fills the soul with a sense of awakening,

The whisper of dawn light, the sweet chatter of a bird.

The mist creeping thru valleys, the day is breaking,

All the sounds of the earth never before heard.

The day has risen with the resurrection of the sun;

The earth suffused with beauty, with threads of light spun.

The shape of the day brought a sense of the eternal,

Soft edges, endless light, moving shadows diurnal.

The child runs through the day in native joy, once awoken,

Little fears, a sense of loneliness, its tears never spoken,

In childhood.

In youth:

All of life fills the soul with a sense of foreboding,

The uncertainty of the future, the body ever changing.

The youth runs blind against the person he or she is;

Without a clear identity, all the desires turn to fizz.

Shouting words of protest, nothing seems to be right,

One’s hopes, one’s dreams, what to do with one’s life.

Always in a hurry to grow bigger and get older,

Seeking to shed all worries and fears, to get bolder.

The threshold of adulthood appears with a sense of arrival;

With it comes responsibility and a sense of survival,

In youth.

In maturity,

All of life may fill the soul with a sense of fulfillment,

Family, friends, work, may bring feelings of contentment.

Life becomes a trial, a series of hurdles to overcome;

Success comes and goes, some things lost, some things won.

The shape of the day well-arranged as a series of duties;

One’s sons grow tall, one’s daughters mature into beauties.

Thru all the ups and downs, life still preserves its glow,

Not only the day, but the years seem endless, life’s rivers flow.

Until the day finally arrives at the threshold of old age,

Life’s story has reached a climax as it nears the last page,

In maturity.

In old age,

All of life fills the soul with a sense of finality;

Let’s not pretend, there is a limit to life’s totality.

A reluctance to turn corners, to make any final decision;

The sands of time flow thru the hourglass with precision.

There is a tendency to see events as if for the last time,

One by one, milestones but sand in fingers, no longer mine.

The last day at work, the last embrace, the last hurrah, the last sigh;

To climb into bed at night and kiss the world goodbye.

There in the distance, the end of the road, getting closer, beckoning;

Life’s mystery soon to be revealed in one final moment, haunting.

In old age.

- - - - - -

(c) John Herlihy 27 September 2018