Why are you racing headlong toward your destination?
Is it quickening of pulse, a shortening of breath
that makes you feel alive, minutes before your death?
Or is it that moment with your worst revealed,
the consequence of which our fate is to be sealed.
For you, no mediocrity, no procrastination.
Is it, whilst we wait our turn in life’s long queue,
that you decide the human side of life is not for you;
that we have lost and have no chance of keeping pace?
In the end, how many of us can win the race?
As I sit in what is left of my own meek ambition,
the wreckage of your decision-making, untrained, untamed,
in barely conscious reverie, I see my family framed
and wonder if you noticed what it is you did.
Onwards and upwards, heaven or hell-bound as we skid
into oblivion, beyond our earthly essay.
Our fate from you we hid…
…but did you find your way?
~~~~~
© 2010 John N Anstie
(View the author’s commentary on this poem)