CONTEMPLATION
| I often dwell in contemplation And in my reverie I celebrate the many joys This life has given me But the road of life has detours Sometimes good and sometimes bad Some fill out hearts with happiness But some make us so sad I lost a special friend this month A special friend has gone His heart has ceased its beating But in my mind he will live on We shared so many memories I treasure them and yet To know we'll share no others Brings such deep regret No longer will he play his role On life's uncertain stage But his name is etched so clearly On my treasured memory page I don't understand the cycle Why we're born, then live, then die Perhaps there is a reason But if there is, I don't know why The laws that govern nature Are wondrous and profound But, why give us life so fleeting Then consign us to the ground? The years speed by so quickly They're relentless in their haste And when another life is taken It seems such a needless waste His experience of living And the emotions that he felt Will disappear forever Like an iceberg that will melt We read books to gain knowledge As an education's sought All those hours he spent in study Was it all for nought? Is religion just a smoke screen Hiding truth behind its veil? Do we go to sleep eternally When our bodies fail? I watch the seconds counted On a clock that's on the wall And as I watch how fast they go Our life span seems so small The allotted time we have in life Is time we can't expand And the hours slip through our fingers Like elusive grains of sand We cannot know our destiny And perhaps that's just as well To know the sorrows we were facing Would be seven kinds of hell We have happiness and heartbreak We have joy and we have strife And more and more I contemplate This mystery that is life His passing took me by surprise My thoughts went racing back In a dream-like trance I found myself Beside a railway track And as I walked beside the line The years were swept away I could see two children playing In a far off yesterday Smoke and steam swirled lazily Toward a summer sky And again I lived the magic Of our childhood days gone by While 'The Historical Society' Keep their steam train on the line It carries such a wondrous load Of memories that are mine There was a foot bridge high above the tracks And that's where we would go And we'd wait with great excitement Until the train chugged past below And then we'd stumble 'round like drunks We thought it such a joke Because just for those few minutes We were in a cloud of smoke The child's mind is so different So now it's hard to see How a thick, black, cloud of sooty smoke Could fill us with such glee We'd pretend that we were on that train Bound for sights unseen We would ride from Perth to Sydney And stop at every town between The train passed by the river And I see it clearly still How we'd watch until it disappeared After topping 'Pine Range' hill My thoughts turn to the river To our favourite swimming hole With its waters flowing cool and deep How the memory warms my soul We would dive out of the willow As its branch swayed to and fro Then float lazily upon our back In the river's gentle flow We'd swim there after school each day Until the sun went down And by summer's end our bodies Would be baked a golden brown And in the cold of winter Most folk had wood fires then So we formed a business partnership And we were only ten Our town then had a sawmill It's not there any more We'd fill small carts with scraps of pine And sell them door to door We'd drag our little home-made carts Through streets of our small town And housewives usually bought our pine They seldom turned us down We loved being close to nature So in Spring we'd go on hikes And to reach each forest's apron We'd ride there on our bikes And with the fall of autumn leaves The work was sometimes hard To earn our pocket money Housewives let us clean their yard A friend for every season A friend through every strife A friend so very precious My best friend all his life Those were tender days of childhood And we thought they'd never end A world so free of worry And I shared it with my friend But father time is merciless The years slide by so fast Too soon the joys of childhood Are just memories of the past It seems we go to sleep as children Then suddenly one day We have grown up into adults With our childhood far away We start searching for direction For a future that is bright Searching for the pathway That will keep our goals in sight The worry of decisions until our choice is made I chose the public service While my best friend chose a trade Our friendship never faltered Not once did it decline I was 'best man' at his wedding And he 'best man' at mine Too soon death's deadly curtain Is loosened and unfurled And another life is taken And leaves our living world He touched so many people And while ever we draw breath His light will keep on glowing Through the darkness that is death We were friends in our adulthood We had so much to share And there's so little of my childhood When my best friend wasn't there He possessed a happy heart His thoughts were always kind I enjoyed his conversation He had such a clever mind I have glimpses of a young man With children at his knee Then visions of an older man With his adoring family But more than his adulthood I see him as a boy I share again that childhood That filled our hearts with joy I see his form so clearly I see his happy, smiling face I feel again the friendship That this life can not replace I am told I must seek 'closure' But that can never be How could I seek 'closure' To a life that's part of me? When I sit in contemplation Of the hours I shared with him He will return me to our childhood His memory will not dim Again we'll laugh in clouds of smoke Again we'll cart our pine And again we'll walk through forests In precious memories that are mine And again we'll swim in waters That are cool and clear and deep I will again live all these moments While my best friend is asleep He will always be close by me Because for me he'll never die My heart will not allow it I refuse to say goodbye K.D. Abbott © 2009 |
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