To one-thousand tomorrows
a jolly toast!
In all that time borrowed
I've not much to boast,
for at this ripe age of seventy-nine
my memories are many
of roses and wine.

I'm not a good soul
in the proper eye;
my sins and my follies
I cannot deny.
For many, they say,
are the "undones" in my life--
"He's not mastered a trade,
nor taken a wife."

But one part of me
I know to be True,
not one choice in my life
would I ever undo.
For free is the spirit
of roses and wine;
Mans' prison of guilt
has never been mine--
'Tis he who laments
o'er yesteryears sorrows
who is wasting away
one thousand tomorrows.

Written from a childhood image of
my paternal grandfather, this was my adult reconciliation of the fact that alcohol is powerless and harmless until combined with an ill-driven choice to drink it, and that addiction to drinking, or any substance, is deeply rooted, not in the substance, but in the powerful systems of shame and denial that substances mask.