2001-08-25 - 6:31 p.m.
A MOMENT TO REMEMBER
Looking back over his life,
His regret looms larger than ever now.
He recalls the one opportunity he had to have it all
And how helpless he was to hold onto it!
Childless in his later years,
He sits alone in the park watching the blonde haired girl play.
Her mother reminds him of her this day.
So fine, so fair, the strawberry locks of her hair.
Playing with her daughter, teaching the young mind to see...
He recalls all the lessons he too wanted to teach, to love, to be.
She was so attentive as he looked on from behind his Financial Journal.
She was all he wanted, as his memory came rushing back in the tear he shed.
The silver locks of hair around his temple turned blue in the warm summer breeze.
Had the day now passed him by – his only moment to seize?
What might have been, dashed upon a sin?
That God has chosen to forgive...
Yet it is he who chooses not to forgive himself, as if upon some expository treatise
For now he prays to the soul of the fetus – his daughter never born.
And begging God for his soulful nod
That he might repeat her time anew.
The shadows grew longer in the park that day.
For the young girl to scamper and play for her Mum.
‘Twas not the only shadows that crept along the path:
The Man, the Child, the self-made Wrath...
Regret is such a hideous thing – Its toll must be paid forever!
As he squandered his life on cheap wine and beer; and the occasional roll in the hay.
All he regrets not getting from life, is the child he longs for and for whom he would pray...
And now he recalls the hour he heard
That his lover was pregnant by him
An abortion to come, and all the years in sum
Would haunt him with each pasing day....
(The Kingston Trio -- Where Have All The Flowers Gone?)
