Another Year

Another year has passed me by.

What does it mean to me?

Is there a point in asking ‘why’?

What living life, has meant to me?

I am in my ninetieth year.

The names of many of my peers

Are prominent and they appear

In death notices. We shed tears.

Driving across the Nullarbor,

My little car was full of fuel.

When it ran out, there were more

Which I could buy. Oh, life is cruel!

My car was abandoned, left to rust.

It was a useless piece of junk.

To life! It is in God we trust!

A toast! A sip, but don’t get drunk!

We live in a commercial age.

The goods we buy aren’t meant to last.

Each day we live, is a new page,

Recording the present and past.

Human life is just the same.

A raindrop, falling from the sky,

Alone it does not have a name.

It vanishes. The world is dry.

And yet a multitude of drops

Gives us the water which we need.

Without rain, there would be no crops.

A world without livestock and seed.

Just as a drop evaporates,

So we depart without a trace.

The loss of one never negates

The meaning of the entire race.

Who knows what that meaning may be?

Life is a rare phenomenon.

The Cosmos could be almost free

Of life, when Planet Earth has gone.

We all contribute what we can.

No angel keeps score.

Perhaps there is no master plan.

Perhaps there is. How can we know?

How many of our cells are shed?

Most of them die and others grow.

Does each cell know what lies ahead?

We think we matter, It gives hope,

But only as a multitude.

Self-consciousness helps us to cope,

Perhaps a futile attitude.

Just as the car body will rust.

The raindrop will evaporate,

And ancient buildings turn to dust,

So entropy determines fate.

We must think of this life we live

As equal to eternity.

A time when we receive and give.

The rest remains unknown to me.