Balance

If there is a beginning, then there has to be an end,

that’s logic says the learned man, with a slight nod of his head;

yet that annoying statement leaves too much to be desired

and so throughout the age of man more speculation’s been applied

to the penetrating question of what life is all about.

*

“We’re here today and gone tomorrow,” says the easy-going chap

“My granddad reckons that is so, ’cause he’d been told it when a lad.”

“There ain’t no more to life, so might just as well live it up!”

“No! No!” cries the local vicar, in a pulpit higher than the pews.

“From where I stand I’ll have you know there’s a very different view

there’s the theological question of what life is all about!”

*

Now if I’d had the patience, and been assured by what he’d said,

I’d most likely have agreed with him, as I lay back thinking on my bed;

fact is, I couldn’t stand the way he reckoned he knew best:

confess and get things off my chest, and follow what he said on

the religious set of questions on what life is all about.

*

The world is getting smaller, day by day I know it’s so

for mass communication presents so much more for me to know;

there’s religions, creeds and churches, some good and some that stink

and most that tell me what to do, and just a few that make me think

about the spiritual question of what life is all about.

*

I dreamed last night I’d floated to the space high above the earth

where my view was clear, unimpeded by the happenings below;

there was balance, there was beauty, a harmony of colour and of form

no sign of any discord from the hostilities I’d known, caused by

the all-embracing question of what life is all about.

*

Awaking the next morning, feeling fresh and full of life

I resolved that I’d tell no-one of the things I’d dreamed about;

that I’d simply get on with my life, while life was mine to hold

believing that eventually these things would all work out.

That’s what I think, anyway….is what life is all about.

*

Dennis Crompton © 1995