One Would Have Been Enough to Make Life Worth Living
If all I ever had in this fleet flower of a life,
Had been just one single slanting ray of light;
That would have been enough to make life worth its futile flight.
If all I had ever heard,
In this brief bathing of the sun,
Had been the song of a single bird;
That would have been enough sheer joyful fun,
To have made brief life worthwhile, when life were over and done.
If I had only smelled the perfumed pleasure of a single flower--
Honeysuckle, violet, buttercup, jasmine, lilac, carnation, or rose--
That would have been enough to make every bitter hour
Worth suffering--to enjoy such priceless sweet before life's close.
If I had tasted nothing but one apple or orange, one peach or plum, one blackberry or blueberry,
One watermelon, one grape, one pineapple, one mango, one tangerine, one pear, one strawberry:
That would have been enough to make life worth living, very.
If I had only felt the feel of one sweet lady's hair,
Or only for one moment kissed her silken skin,
It would have been enough to make me glad that I was there--
However briefly--in this world of pain and sorrow;
Of cruelty's crimes; of uncompassionate life-denying rules; of God-given erotic joy, miscalled sin.
I drain today as it slips away, toward the last tomorrow.
For this is still a world of so many a beautiful blessing;
And as my moments pass, I live and give each one my love's caressing.
Though my ultimate fate I cannot know beyond mere guessing,
This I know: My life has been wonderful and well worth living.
Even though, in the end, life is a loan recalled,
And not a permanent giving.
Though magic must be mauled,
And miracle must be marred--
And though it is so very hard,
In the nearing end, to have to lose sweet life and die--
And though my kind of cancer will not let my life pass in a gentle wane,
But will wrack it and wrench it from me by degrees and bites, in devouring pain--
My heart wells up with gratitude for every smile and time of happy laughter.
My time of life before death was worth living--no matter how I must die--
No matter what, or if nothing, may come after.
A single smiling moment, or one minute of life-joyful laughter,
Would have been enough to make my life worth all the tears I've had to cry.
I am grateful for my miraculous feeling heart and my thinking, living, magical mind--
I am grateful for all I have, still left, and for all I once had.
I bless my well-loved, much-missed mother for giving me birth and raising me.
No sorrow or suffering can make me so sad, that for my life I would not still be grateful and glad.
I know so much, so many things; but to the ultimate truth, I am blind.
But I am not blind to beauty, nor deaf to birdsong, music, and poetry;
I am grateful for the godlike gift of my precious me, my wondrous inner I;
And for all my loving living days.
As I pass on, to unknown final fate--forgetting all the pain, and all the loss--
With everything I am, and was, and had, going away with time's terrible farthest toss--
I still feel grateful for all that was joyful, happy, pleasureful, and good; and give God praise.
=======================
Written by Michael L.P.
aka MLP, aka PoetWithCancer, aka Mr. Poet, aka PWC
(I'm just me)
Copyright © 2012 by Michael L.P. All rights reserved
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