Just follow the signposts, on the road to infinity,

one by one they'll rise up to meet you.

In the beginning is Immaturity,

leading you on to Insecurity,

up the hill towards Enlightenment,

where you are trapped behind the

caravan of Disenchantment.

Waiting to overtake you ponder

the Imponderable on this freeway

to Immortality, conveniently

forgetting your bouts of Immorality.

You pull over to the hard shoulder

of Regret to Stop, Revive, Survive,

it is here the fog of Uncertainty closes

in, Impairing your vision, and your Decisions,

driving on Regardless, you hope there is no

oncoming traffic, but you need not worry,

for on this road there is plenty of Going,

but no Coming back.

The end is in sight, a final sign Declares,

Off ramp, get in the Right lane,

as usual you are in the Wrong lane, and as

a Consequence of this, you drive Straight ahead

into the concrete barrier of Belligerence.

You realise you've reached your Destination

much as you started out, in a state of Illusion,

Delusion, and Confusion.

At least you will not be alone, the rest of us

are Coming round the bend,

heading for the Mother of all Pile-ups.

 

Views: 36

Comment by william james falls on April 1, 2013 at 18:51

No, they just keep on adding more tunnel. !

Comment by Dermott Ryder on April 8, 2013 at 14:57

William

Good one! Another thought provoking gem.

 

May I take the liberty of sharing this trans Canadian journey with you…?

 

As a whole a fine example of the contemplative Service, I find the first and last verses particularly striking and, across the years, surprisingly relevant. It come from ‘Ballads of Cheechako’, first published in 1910, my copy in 1919.

 

Robert William Service, Lancashire born of a Scottish ilk, moved to Canada at the age of 21 years.

 

Regards

DR

 

THE WOOD-CUTTER

By Robert W. Service [1874-1958]

 

The sky is like an envelope,

one of those blue official things;

and, sealing it, to mock our hope,

the moon, a silver wafer, clings.

What shall we find when death gives leave

to read - our sentence or reprieve?

 

I'm holding it down on God's scrap-pile, up on the fag-end of earth;

over me a menace of mountains, a river that grits at my feet;

face to face with my soul-self, weighing my life at its worth;

wondering what I was made for, here in my last retreat.

 

Last! Ah, yes, it's the finish. Have ever you heard a man cry?

Sobs that rake him and rend him, right from the base of the chest,

that's how I've cried, oh, so often; and now that my tears are dry,

 I sit in the desolate quiet and wait for the infinite rest.

 

Rest! Well, it's restful around me; it's quiet clean to the core.

The mountains pose in their ermine; in golden the hills are clad;

the big, blue, silt-freighted Yukon seethes by my cabin door,

 and I think it's only the river that keeps me from going mad.

 

By day it's a ruthless monster, a callous, insatiate thing,

with oily bubble and eddy, with sudden swirling of breast;

by night it's a writhing Titan, sullenly murmuring,

ever and ever goaded, and ever crying for rest.

 

It cries for its human tribute, but me it will never drown.

 I've learned the lore of my river; my river obeys me well.

I hew and I launch my cordwood, and raft it to Dawson town,

where wood means wine and women, and, incidentally, hell.

 

Hell and the anguish thereafter. Here as I sit alone

I'd give the life I have left me to lighten some load of care:

the bitterest part of the bitter is being denied to atone;

lips that have mocked at Heaven lend themselves ill to prayer.

Impotent as a beetle pierced on the needle of fate;

a wretch in a cosmic death-cell peaks for my prison bars;

‘whelmed by a world stupendous, lonely and listless I wait,

drowned in a sea of silence, strewn with confetti of stars.

 

See! From far up the valley a rapier pierces the night,

the white search-ray of a steamer. Swiftly, serenely it nears;

a proud, white, alien presence, a glittering galley of light,

confident-poised, triumphant, freighted with hopes and fears.

 

I look as one looks on a vision; I see it pulsating by;

I glimpse joy-radiant faces; I hear the thresh of the wheel.

Hoof-like my heart beats a moment; then silence swoops from the sky.

Darkness is piled upon darkness. God only knows how I feel.

 

Maybe you've seen me sometimes; maybe you've pitied me then -

the lonely waif of the wood-camp, here by my cabin door.

Some day you'll look and see not; futile and outcast of men,

 I shall be far from your pity, resting forevermore.

    

My life was a problem in ciphers, a weary and profitless sum.

Slipshod and stupid I worked it, dazed by negation and doubt.

Ciphers the total confronts me. Oh, Death, with thy moistened thumb,

stoop like a petulant schoolboy, wipe me forever out!

Comment by william james falls on April 8, 2013 at 20:32

he was ever the optimist wasn't he !

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