Transience

 

As I waded briskly in morning’s serenity -

the tarred road on my right looking gritty

on my left, hedged plants sloping mild

towards the parched river bed grown all wild -

I spied a lively robin on a furrowed soil crest

its twitter rising from its quivering breast

as it twitched its reddish-brown tail in zest

calling to its mate perhaps to roost and nest.

 

I tried to stifle and smother my sneeze

lest terrified, it would flee or freeze.

I snuffed my sneeze in the nick of time.

It continued its merry cacophonous rime.

Soon I passed by it and from my sight gone

but the chatter in my head twittered on:

 

A fragile blithe blob of flesh and blood

a teeny lease of life in its body floods

snuffed finally by a vicious predator

or an invisible viral terminator

or old age wrestling it to death.

 

Lucky robin!

No unbridled thoughts in your head running rife

no strangulating coiling memory maze to fife

just a few instinctual ones of your nest,

your chicks, your haunts of food and rest.

No draining emotions and moping fettering feelings

a fleeting life lived purely by nature’s coded instincts.