Evenings Are Long
When at First You are Alone
H. W. Bryce
Evenings are long when at first you’re alone,
And silence falls as dead and deaf as stone.
There’s no one else, and no one ever calls,
So endlessly you pace the empty halls.
I muse:
Learn to love yourself, learn not to fear,
Listen to your heartbeat,
Learn to heed your thoughts,
Learn to fill your time well,
Heed your inner bell…
…my mind wanders, loses rhythm,
Life has fallen into a schism…
When you’re all alone, time changes pace,
You find you’re losing life’s long race.
You’ve done your chores, and then some more,
You’ve worked your hobbies, then you’re bored,
The clock it seems has gone to sleep,
The big hand finds the climb too steep.
I guess it’s time to make my peace,
Accept my lot, rewrite my lease
On life; start again, find new footing
Learn from tech, do a rebooting…
I bestir myself.
I play mouses with my cat,
I write a note in my notebook,
I read some Keats and try my hand
To write Keats a verse that is not bland…
Next thing I know, my cat rouses me,
It’s time to quit and come to bed.
He snuggles me just as before,
And I’m not lonely any more.
I learn to contemplate the silent hours,
Accept each one as a gift like flowers;
They are mine to do with as I will,
I invest in them, they’re not time to kill.
And now I fill the halls with song and sound.
This is a new life here that I have found,
And facing time I find is no cause to blink,
Evenings can be shorter thank you think.
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