Happily Ever After (Poetry)
24th February 2013
...And they lived happily ever after...
at least, that was the way the tale was meant to end
but the story went on — chapters still unwritten
blank pages automatically filled as sagas tend
to lend themselves to sequels come what may
and life unfolds its big and smaller dramas
with no warning and, in time, sorrow comes to stay.
No fairness can be found — and goodness suffers
the fate that should, by rights, be for those bad
cruel and heartless types — the mean and selfish
but nothing in this world obeys such rules —
the kind, the clever and the blameless
find luck abandons them and favours fools.
Happiness is random — rare and fleeting —
measured in a quiet moment’s joy.
Misery’s a crushing weight — a millstone
dragged around — a punishment for some imagined crime
yet through it all the trusting, hopeful soul
battles life and fights against the odds —
makes happiness their one unchanging goal.
at least, that was the way the tale was meant to end
but the story went on — chapters still unwritten
blank pages automatically filled as sagas tend
to lend themselves to sequels come what may
and life unfolds its big and smaller dramas
with no warning and, in time, sorrow comes to stay.
No fairness can be found — and goodness suffers
the fate that should, by rights, be for those bad
cruel and heartless types — the mean and selfish
but nothing in this world obeys such rules —
the kind, the clever and the blameless
find luck abandons them and favours fools.
Happiness is random — rare and fleeting —
measured in a quiet moment’s joy.
Misery’s a crushing weight — a millstone
dragged around — a punishment for some imagined crime
yet through it all the trusting, hopeful soul
battles life and fights against the odds —
makes happiness their one unchanging goal.