All Seats on Deck!

RUBY TUESDAY
http://workofthepoet.blogspot.com/

ALL SEATS ON DECK!

How's this for a Travel Agent's?

Don't you, instantly, feel

That holidays are all that counts

And Real Life isn't real?

Don't tell me you're not transported

To an Ocean liner's deck,

Away from the daily humdrum,

Where you always feel a wreck!

Oh yes! You may be waiting

For some considerable while,

Before your turn at the counter,

But you'll just lie back and smile!

You'll hear the wild waves lapping,

You'll hear the seagulls cry,

You'll sip an imaginary cocktail,

And the time will simply fly.

A neat piece of psychology,

Or so it seems to me;

So much better than a sofa!

'Two tickets, please, to the sea!'

*

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JO

Do you recall how you and I
Discussed how it would be to die?
Do you remember how you said
'It will be restful to be dead.
When I reach sixty-four or five
I wont much want to be alive.
I'll realise it's time to go'.
Remember, Jo?
You laughed, quite sure you spoke the truth,
Brimming with certainty and youth;
Life was a thing of verve and zest;
Death just a postscript to the rest.
'It would be mad to linger on,
When it was clear we should be gone.'
At seventeen, as I recall,
We knew it all.
I added my opinion then….
'Who wants to reach three score and ten?
There will be nothing left to see!
I'll have been all I'Il want to be.
I'll feel contented and complete;
Death will be welcome and quite sweet.
Who wants to be wrinkled, old and slow?'
Remember, Jo?
Seventy years on, where are you, Jo,
Now that it's nearly time to go?
Oh, not tomorrow, not next year,
But the future's not in doubt from here.
Are you still sanguine and at peace,
Quite comfortable that life will cease?
Or do you reminisce and fret
And say 'Not yet!'?
There must be times when you declare
'It isn't right! It isn't fair!
There's still so much to do and learn!
It can't be true I've had my turn!
It can't be true there's not much more!'
Are you still wise and brash and sure?
Do you say 'yes' to death or 'no'?
I wonder, Jo.
My rusty lantern, old, unsightly,
Still bears a candle that burns brightly.
The body ages, stoops and fades,
But the mind still sings its serenades.
The passions and the longings last;
The mind still pleads 'Don't go too fast!'
Where did they go, the years between,
Since seventeen?
Had we a choice, which would we choose,
This tiny life we swiftly lose,
Or a vast unending stream of living;
Coming, going, getting, giving?
Would we choose a dandelion puff
And would forever be enough?
So, are you still content to go?
I doubt it, Jo.
*