A Day in September
When we lose from our accustomed world
Something that had been part of the map
By which we thought we might manage
To find a way along what seems like
An increasingly difficult path,
We know there is little point
In dwelling too long on the inevitability
That dictates that everything ends;
Yet knowing the way a story concludes
Doesn’t make the actual ending
Any easier, nor transform to any extent
The way in which the playwright
Writes the concluding act, the final lines.
Our picture of the world we inhabit
Is made up of the daily and the familiar,
Of places that form the background
Of our ordinary lives, always present,
Like certain people we assume
Will not really have to leave us,
And then suddenly are no longer there,
And we notice their loss, as if the lights
Have been suddenly dimmed,
Or a clock that was ticking
Has fallen silent, its hands
Stopping at an arbitrary
And unremarkable time:
A moment when most of us
Were doing nothing special,
Before we were told that something
We knew must happen, has happened.
It is at such times that reaching
The end of the final act, the point
At which the stage curtain must fall,
We realise what it is that we miss
In the normal way we lead our lives;
And we look for things that are permanent,
And not glibly imitated, nor for sale:
Duty and kindness, old-fashioned virtues
That we should never have dreamed
We did not need, but without which
The play in which we all are actors
Will not end well; we see these qualities,
And understand, with sudden shock,
How much we need one another,
How much we want to do better
With our bruised and suffering world,
How much we want love, not selfishness,
To be the note to which the orchestra tunes,
The note taken up by the chorus, and sung
Loud enough to drown out all the other noise.
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