Hymn to Life
O life, that has been called a mid-death crisis,
a dull throb of loneliness inside my breast,
a colourful spew going on outside the cave-
walls of the skull, how beautiful you can be!
For something that crawled out of the sea
or “clambered up” I am surprisingly evolved
and with my super-involuted eye look round,
as if for clues in the solipsistic kitchen!
My mother’s grand children will come up,
to stay with us soon, and the whole, great
human comedy of it all remain self-perpetuating…
I too am part of the electric human chain
even if a little bit skint, single, unemployed,
mentally ill, medicated, living with my mum, car-less.
How you like to surprise us with little things.
How we should not let you just fly past.
As I process my leisure to trial and outcome,
I cast my mind back to the recent past, flattering
the procession of memory with memory,
trying to come unstuck and see the light…
and what great corridors you have me go down!
And what great arms you seem to possess!
And what great wings you still fly with!
And yet how fragile you are, how precious!
I should never do anything to harm you,
anything to jeopardise this fragile situation,
but celebrate your glory and exalt the senses,
with a song of triumphancy in the dead of the Night!
And with what frail clutches we hang on sometimes,
when prone in the hospital bed in A and E,
and how we learn death is absolutely vile
and the reason to want to stay alive is love!
John Tucker
If you have any
thoughts about this poem,
John Tucker would like to hear them.
