Thirty Years Ago Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

Thirty years ago
And even less
I used to go
Out in the gardens
Breathe the air
Feel as I passed
Through sentinel trees
An earthly emperor.

But that time passed:
The brain
Cannot come to terms
With slipping time:
Yet
The clock reads so
And so it be.

Ticking less and
Less
My clock of biology:
The glistening iron
Of the guillotine
Comes down slow
But remorseless


Then
Thirty years ago
And even less
Of love of life
Business power
Glory talked I
Acquisitions and advances
Material all
They put me in trances.

But now
Now
Now my blood has cooled
Under of experience
The anvil
Now
I look not on
Acquisitions though
Glimpses of the olden
Wishes come and go
But they go
Thirty years ago
Remained they:
And now
Even in my verse
Of graves and skeletons
And ghosts and shrouds
Of dusk pining and
Night’s long silences
The stars, the dawn
That comes and goes
And comes again by rote:
These
These
I chant now
These
I sing:
These my vocabulary
The notes of my song
The sounds of my sad violin
And
Now
Now
It be night
On the scented waves
The spirits of the night
Transparent sail and go
And
From my turret high
I look on the dark seas
Know
And will to go:
Go
To the land that’s
Far
And far away.
Sooner or later
Same result will be
And
I will go
Go far away and
Dissolve
As snows at touch of sun
All my persona
All my things
My all
My All in One
My One in All,
I go
Resting.