The things I valued
not so long ago –
the things for which I lived
and the ones I left untold
are all now piled together
into one close-packed rhyme
for all now share in fate:
They’ve fallen out of time.
Those things I used to care for,
and those I used to hate,
are all now out of store;
oblivion their fate.
The school I used to go to
has left the Earth and passed.
The town that I grew up in
is breathing at its last.
The people I once knew
have disappeared from view
and it’s no consolation
to think of all the new.
The things I once believed in
is history today.
The earliest of my paintings
is buried under rubble;
nothing is to stay.
But who cares for my words
and who cares for the truth?
The world we live in now
cares only for success and youth.
To say that nothing lasts,
to say that all’s in vain
is not to be expected
to strike a common strain.
And that is why in silence
within my withering heart
I ponder my antiquities
alone and in the dark.
What others will forget
for me alone remains.
What others want achieve
for me is what’s been had
and cannot be again.