Where are the regrets
Of a life nearly gone?
They stream like the phantom
Images fleet from the RAM
That defines the screen,
Randomized by the collapse
Of their electronic ardor
When the plug is pulled.
All the nows we ever missed
All the girls we never kissed
Or rumpled, rolling in the dark
Are awful flaws upon the list
Of past regrets, and now the lateness
Of the hour
Puts away our final power
To redress all the wrongs we saw
To hero here and finally flower
(Like the bozo in the songs)
Into a savior of all that's good.
It seems that death is seen with should
Have done this, or done that.
Should have walked the dog.
Should have put out the cat.
Should have grasped the nettle
Of my life while still it stood
Before me. Now I'm dying.
Oh, I should have lived a while I
Should.
How long a lifetime loomed
At the beginning of the end;
It seemed to stretch like the rails
Or freeways to the coast
To the vanishing point.
How short a lifetime is
When seen from near the end;
It seems too short for freedom
Or the grails of holy trade
And all the arguments for forever fall
Before Occam's blade.
Whose tears are these?
I think I know,
His house was in the village, though;
I heard he passed away last night,
His ghost now haunts the moors
And cries for all the love it lost
Cries for the cost of sinking
In between the shores.
Now I'm thinking it could be
That this cold ghost
Is really me. Eternity lies in the sound
A baby makes. A seed shall see
The dawning of the day.
An old oak falls, beneath the stroke
Of lightening bright.
The way of all living things
Is day before night.