The Things We Least Imagine Are What Happen

Music: Art of the Fugue, Contrapunctus 1.
By J.S. Bach. Sequencer unknown. Modified by
David Grossman.

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Nicholas Gordon

The things we least imagine are what happen.
The memory is so unlike the dream!
Love, pleasure, pain, the sadness of life's passing
Are strangers that we met along the way.

And we ourselves are nothing like the selves
We were and thought, perhaps, we'd always be.
Somehow we got turned into our parents,
Failing neither more nor less than they.

Still we dream and hope for something better,
And pray that no catastrophe comes near,
Knowing that it will, and we will suffer,
And be ourselves far less than we would wish.

This, at least, we know: that disillusion
Is not the quiet ending of the dream.
For dream we must, but, with an inner smile,
Embracing both the nature and the need.

Copyright by Nicholas Gordon. Free for personal or non-commercial use.

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