On the eve of mine own five
And twentieth autumn alive,
A voice did quietly arrive
Having likely heard my cry:
‘So life,’ he whispered, ‘is not what thou thought,
Woefully bereft of fleece or argonaut,
Infinitely longer than was taught
In the bright schoolroom with the lot.
‘Humans are not what thou believed,
And thou wept into thy sleeve,
When thou wast dreadfully deceived
By the lies which they weave.
‘So thou thinkest that everything one might do
Is but a raindrop in the blue,
Or that the ballad of the two
Belongs to merely a precious few,
‘Learned on rainy day one spring
Whilst at the bay thou sat shaking,
That astray the poets have led, creating
A meadow from their head, hanging
‘A high swing held by golden string
Whose view doth brandish everything
As if from divine dream waking
A rosy making, a rapturous painting.
‘So thou art of the opinion that
They have led thee down the garden path
Only to fall from swing aback
To land in homely dirt with a crack.
‘This is all,’ said he,
‘A great and awful tragedy,
Yet it is not so bad, canst thou see?
This I shall make clear to thee.’
‘Come, sweet one, open the window wide,
Feel the breeze along thine side,
See the cold and brilliant tide,
Life is a groom and thou its bride.
‘So thou yearnest for a great quest,
Like Odysseus, Achilles, and all the rest,
Or dreamed in youth once flown from nest,
Of donning words like armor atop thine breast.
‘But name me one hero who knew,
He was a hero afore his story was through.
What thou must needs do,
Is alter thine view.
‘Thine adventure is no less grand
Than that of any past or future man.
Thou threatened to cut it off before it even began,
And worse, before thou couldst even understand.
‘Thine days are a song, thine life a play,
If thou only chooseth to see it this way:
The coffee, the madness, all betray
A story of sorts told in olden day.
‘The grass you step through knows you not apart
From the poet, the storekeeper, the courageous heart,
And though the days might tasteth steely and tart,
One last thing I must impart.
‘Life is not what thou thought,
Not the dream for which thou fought,
Nor the novel that was taught,
So that all seemeth for naught.
‘Though the world may not look the same,
Thou art as much a hero as those of fame.
Only remember thine own name,
And thou art as dangerous as open flame.
‘So do not cry these tears so poor.
Even if thine tale resembles not those of yore,
Thou art simply living out the lore
The likes of which no one hath read before.’