GAINS AND LOSSES

Gains and Losses

In the game of life, we lose a lot

Much more than we gain

And spend half our time out of our minds

And the other, half insane.

Our columns add up in tiny measures

But the minus columns are long

We hum our tunes about the moon

And never learn the song.

We walk the streets with solemn feet

And pass people we could love

But we don't have the time, we are so blind

To needs we don't think of.

Stock markets rise, stock markets fall

And we throw our money down

And riches lose or poverty gain

We swagger like a clown.

He who dies with the most toys wins

The saying goes today

But the winner loses all the same

When he throws his friends away.

And lovers come and lovers go

And people pass from Earth

And living flows so very slow

Between the death and birth.

We poets write in dark of night

Our prose for other's hearts

We see the love that others share

And of which we have no part.

And after death our fame may rise

And our verses published be

But the adoration given then

Our eyes will never see.

For poets only feel the losses

The suffering and pain

We do not know the face of love

Or blessings ever gain.

But if Heaven waits beyond the veil

As a reward for our trust

Then all our losses will fade away

And blow away like dust.

Perhaps this life was never meant

To be a poet's paradise

But through the preaching of our prose

Save other men from vice.

I cannot say, I do not know

I only know I yearn

To lose the losses and gain the gains

And to share what I have learned.

©by Voo 

Jan 6, 05