FMS-Blog : The Wildly Whimsical, Mostly Musical WebLog
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Next, Please
I've often written blogs that cover life's big issues - really my internal agonising about how much of life passes us by while we're too busy getting concerned over things that seem important on the surface but don't really matter at all. I've tried hard at times to write these thoughts down in a clear and concise way in blogs such as Walking in Shadows, What Life is For and What Life is For, Part II, but I'm rarely happy with how it comes across.
Then yesterday, while chilling out in the afternoon reading through some poetry, I came across something written by Philip Larkin that summed up the feeling completely. The piece is called Next, Please and here is it is in completion:
Always too eager for the future, we
Pick up bad habits of expectancy.
Something is always approaching; every day
Till then, we say,
Watching from a bluff the tiny, clear,
Sparkling armada of promises draw near.
How slow they are! And how much time they waste,
Refusing to make haste!
Yet still they leave us holding wretched stalks
Of disappointment, for, though nothing balks
Each big approach, leaning with brasswork prinked,
Each rope distinct,
Flagged, and the figurehead with golden tits
Arching our way, it never anchors; it's
No sooner present than it turns to past.
Right to the last
We think each one will heave to and unload
All good into our lives, all we are owed
For waiting so devoutly and so long.
But we are wrong:
Only one ship is seeking us, a black-
Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back
A huge and birdless silence. In her wake
No waters breed or break.
A little dark, perhaps. But, the message I take from it is live for today rather than hoping something better will come along tomorrow. I must read more of this guy's stuff!
Then yesterday, while chilling out in the afternoon reading through some poetry, I came across something written by Philip Larkin that summed up the feeling completely. The piece is called Next, Please and here is it is in completion:
Always too eager for the future, we
Pick up bad habits of expectancy.
Something is always approaching; every day
Till then, we say,
Watching from a bluff the tiny, clear,
Sparkling armada of promises draw near.
How slow they are! And how much time they waste,
Refusing to make haste!
Yet still they leave us holding wretched stalks
Of disappointment, for, though nothing balks
Each big approach, leaning with brasswork prinked,
Each rope distinct,
Flagged, and the figurehead with golden tits
Arching our way, it never anchors; it's
No sooner present than it turns to past.
Right to the last
We think each one will heave to and unload
All good into our lives, all we are owed
For waiting so devoutly and so long.
But we are wrong:
Only one ship is seeking us, a black-
Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back
A huge and birdless silence. In her wake
No waters breed or break.
A little dark, perhaps. But, the message I take from it is live for today rather than hoping something better will come along tomorrow. I must read more of this guy's stuff!
