Legacy

My restless mind scans the vista

of a life now almost run its course.

I seek the signs of paths and tracks

I once had thought were straight and true,

though now I see they twist and turn

with little reason.

I seek those rises where

I planned for ventures bold and brave.

I seek the valleys dark

where, brooding, I had lost my way.

Where are the mighty towers that I have raised

to mark my passing;

where I declared that this brief life

was worthy of attention;

where I, like Darius of old,

had carved upon the rock in bold conceit

"See, I have made this world a better place"?

Why is it that I can no longer find

these monuments to me?

I see life’s wasteland now

for what it is;

blighted way-stops,

lost hopes and chance diversions.

I see this wildness now

for what it is;

illusion.

It will be best by far

to find myself in smallness,

knowing that my legacy is

little more than this -

that I was here, and that I’ve gone,

that I once passed this way,

my life’s tread too light to leave a mark.

Put simply, I just was, and in my was-ness

I loved a little, cried a lot,

learned much, forgot too soon,

built castles in the air

and made, at times,

together with fellow pilgrims far too few,

a we-were-here-ness that left

some trace somewhere, sometime, somehow.

© Karel Reus