More often it comes. Nothing
Lasts forever. Trees are cut
Down and wilt and forests ring,
With the sound of chain-saws.
Everyone is mortal, no one,
Is victorious against Death's claws.
The leaves fall and are done.
Young become old and die.
Countries appear and war and fade,
Everything will eventually lie
Down. Things are always made
And Winter is where they are headed.
Nothing can escape the onslaught
Of the coldness and so they are dead.
The trees freeze, we are taught.
Spring is too often, too cold.
The leaves do not appear yet;
Though they should, we are told.
It is time for those alive to bet,
On what is diminished and done,
So far. It is possible to prolong,
The inevitable but there are none
Who can escape. They are wrong;
When they talk of summer
And of new and young. I cope,
But nothing lasts forever
And nothing ever will, except hope.
Again, with most of my poems, this was written a few years ago, this one during a slightly darker period... Not really sure what state I was in, but I felt like writing this as a frontal assault on what I saw as the insult that there was any good in the world. People like to blind themselves sometimes, and I well and truly did!
I would say that my situation in life, from a worldly point of view is much worse now than it was then, but there is a huge difference. I mentioned hope in the very last line; what is different now is that I understand what that hope is.
And it's not just any unfounded hope. It's the hope that never fails. The hope that is built on a solid foundation. The hope that anchors me and keeps me from going adrift. It is a hope that has become a faith. And that faith has changed my life and how I live my life.
For one thing, I don't write poems like this anymore! But this poem still speaks to me about how I was. About the fear and predicament that I was in and the feeling of helplessness that every person eventually discovers if they do not know God. There is only a hope with no substance, with no foundation. And so when the storms come, we can be swept away.
It is a constant reminder to me of the desperation that I have come from. I was lost without and now I am found. I was blind to God, but He opened my eyes. I pray that He will work in the hearts of everyone who reads this and that this poem will be held up as a mirror to the lives of anyone who does not yet know God, so that they can see just how lost they really are.
And with God's help, they will be changed. We must be born again.
