April 11, 2007

The other day as I was walking along,

I was enjoying in my mind a little song

Loving the beat and tapping the tune

Unaware of what was coming up soon.

You see, in the midst of all my simple fun

I had closed my eyelids under the sun.

Why, then I had blocked a critical view

Of what my careless feet were going to do!

You’d think that they would avoid every trap,

And that someone would have replaced the cap,

To the sewer drain that leads far below,

Where the scene is dark and the air is cold.

I fell in a manner neither straight nor neat,

I only hoped that I’d safely land on my feet.

The hole kept going down as I followed the flow

As gravity would have it--as we all certainly know.

Have you observed a start tells nothing of an end?

That a cordial beginning may not lead to a friend?

This is what I learned too as I hit with a wet boom,

Plunging deep under the grey water to certain doom.

They say that ignorance is bliss,

But a truth they certainly miss

Is ignorance of coming pain

Is neither for our good nor gain.

Walk then not as the foolish kind

But as the wise, redeeming the time.

Poetry Lost