Through winding roads of life, my mind doth stray
In search of meaning, purpose, clarity.
This sonnet is my humble attempt to say
What words alone can ne’er suffice to free
The inner thoughts and questions that I pray
Might find reply in poetry’s mystery.
And so with pen in hand I here convey
Some meditations on life’s fragility.
What is this life we’re given but to see
The passing days in fleeting moments fleet?
From birth we’re bound by time’s sure destiny
Toward death, though none its hour may know complete.
Each turning year presents new mystery
As childhood fades and age moves silent feet.
We wave goodbye to youth without a care,
Its joys and pains now seeming oh so fair.
Maturity brings duty, hope, and load,
Responsibilities along life’s road.
The future’s shrouded veil none lift nor pare,
Its winding path through unknown landscape soar.
What bounties may tomorrow yet restore,
What losses or what gifts it has in store?
Each new day dawns with its unwritten pages,
Blank sheets on which we write our changing stages.
Time spares no soul but bears us on its stream,
Relentless in its passage and its theme.
The sands within hourglass ever flow
To mark the phases of our brief cameo.
Diminished grains betoken fleeting days,
Our small allotment ’mid old time’s long ways.
See from the bud sweet flower forth unfurl,
Then brown and wither at winter’s stern girl.
Its ephemeral reign but types man’s own lot –
A season’s bloom, then withered, soon forgot.
All flesh thus feels the touch of dark decay,
Mortality’s grim brother along our way.
None walk this earth untouched by sorrow’s rod,
All taste at some timesuffering’s bitter clod.
Whether by chance mishap or inner strife,
Grief comes, unbidden, to all walks of life.
Misfortune strikes with arbitrary force
To alter lives and drive them off their course.
Beloveds perish, dreams dissolve in air,
Health fails, hopes fade – such is mortality’s fare.
Yet interlaced with woe are also given
Gleams of deep joy to light our way to heaven.
Love lifts our hearts above life’s rugged grind,
In compassion souls in fellowship may find.
Sweet mercy oft the bitter draught can leaven,
And in our fellow man we glimpse bright heaven.
Thus in this chequered world of shadow and shine
No mind nor soul journeys entirely alone.
Each life, though solitary in its shrine,
Is web-entwined with all in flesh that cone.
Our being finds its meaning intertwined
With fellowship, with hopes of kindred kind.
In sharing joy and sorrow, smile and tear,
We lighten loads too heavy for one to bear.
And as we walk together life’s up-hill way,
Support and strengthen one another we may.
So let concord, not discord, be our guide
As side by side we traverse life’s tide.
With care and kindness for our fellow man
Our days enrich, and purpose thus we can plan.
In such wise I’ve sought through rhyme to trace
Some aspects of the mystery we face –
This variegated journey called our span,
Its mingled lights and dark across the pan
Of years. Yet words but dimly picture all
The heights, depths, changes that on beings fall
As through time’s tunnel each one wends alone,
Yet in community of souls is shown.
We live, we love, we grieve, we go our ways
Beneath time’s leaden foot that bears our days,
Find solace in each other as we may –
Such is the lot of mortals, I would say.
And so my sonnet ends as it begun,
With questions more than answers seen or won.
May light of love and fellowship e’er burn
To light our pilgrimage till life’s long turn.