Me, In Verse
As I stand at the gateway of a New Year,
I look all around and no one is near.
Wondering why I am left, all the others gone,
I shed a tear to myself, I'm the only one.
I wonder still how my family did behave,
Now I will take the question to my grave.
Treated with scorn all my life, not knowing why,
What kept me apart I will never know why.
As a boy barely in my teens, it was plain to see,
The writing was on the wall for me to see.
I could have stayed at school, I was a good scholar,
But I had to get away to where they couldn't follow.
I needed some help, companionship and a trade,
I found that the army would come to my aid.
It did, I was happy, I had friends by the score,
I had made the break, never to go back any more.
All went well for my years in the service I had chose,
Other places, other nations, I loved all of those.
But as always from a dream one must awaken,
In a distant land my spine got broken.
The pain was so bad, but what came next was far worse,
They were sending me back for my family to nurse.
I tried to stall, but it was all in vain from the start,
I was going with a broken back and a broken heart.
My life in that faraway place I tried to end,
My attempt was thwarted by a loving friend.
This all happened in my distant past I must say,
Through the love of my wife I am still here today.
She picked me up from my self imposed gutter.
All these years on, not a complaint did she utter.
We have been together now for almost 50 years,
Not without, I must add, a lot of sadness and tears.
Life has been happy, sad and sometimes desperate too,
But with God on our side we have seen it through.
© Dave Timperley 10/11/2018
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