Here's another poem that wouldn't let me go to bed until I wrote it. I won't say what time I got to bed....let's just say that I woke up at the crack of noon.

IT’S TOUGH-A lament and a rant

It’s tough-
When the two best things
I have left
Are a knapsack full of memories
And the sure hope of new life afterward,
And I haven’t enough chips
To cash in so that the journey
From here to there
Can be made in accommodations
Better than steerage.

It’s tough
When declining health
Diminished mental acuity,
And a shrinking pocketbook
All conspire to draw the curtains shut
Before the end of the last act
On any dreams I might have wanted
To stage, and I am left
On an empty set with no lines to recite.

It’s tough
To be mostly bound
To a very small world
To face the reality
That my traveling days
Are pretty much over,
Places I loved to visit
Are no longer there for me
And things I had longed to see
I will see only in books, on film,
Or in the descriptions of those
Fortunate enough to still be able
To make the trip.

It’s tough
Not having another human voice
In the apartment,
Someone to come home to,
To lie next to at night,
Someone to share my dreams,
And children, happily chattering
About their day around the supper table
Being able to share
The voyage of discovery,
To see things anew through their eyes.
The cats are nice,
But just for once I would like
Someone human who is THERE,
And whose presence
Needn’t be planned for.

It’s tough,
But I am reminded
The place I find myself in now
Is the result of choices I made
In those days of memory I so treasure;
Some wise, very many foolish,
Or worse, pernicious
Roads not taken,
Walls not torn down,
Doors I was too much of a coward
To force open. What I have
Is what is left to me,
And so I’d better use it well.

It is tough,
But I will continue
I have reached that time in life
Where very few choices remain,
And the hand I hold
Is pretty much
The hand I must play
For better, for worse.
I’ve become adept
At extracting small joys
From the humdrum
I will continue to do so.

Heaven awaits,
But in the meantime
I will live in the hope
That somehow, some way
I will be lucky enough
To win a pot or two
And the trip
From here to eternity
Will come
With a few unexpected surprises.

-Chip Bergeron
June 19, 2013