An Elegy On The Parting Poem by Oleg Vorobyov

"To what shall I compare this world? A boat that rows off with the morning leaving no trace behind"

(Sami Mansei, VIII c. Japanese poet)

As I stroll home autumn alleys
Strewn with the rainbow of leaves
Which float through the gauzy air
In their streamlined veiny skiffs;
As I imbibe the tonic ether
Of lurid, diaphanous skies,
Its fibrous semi-liquid kefir,
Some strange ideas me surprise:
Why human memory that failing?
What links us to the dear past?
Why sudden change feels that derailing
That breaks the bond which has been fast?

***
The Human Memory's selective.
It sticks to things which cost us much
But overboard with thrust ejective
It dumps it thinks it's trash as such.
As age elapses, to oblivion
Bites after bites it thus commits:
All's gone to void, - the dead and living, -
All's nullified, elided, quit.
It's normal when we loosen grip
Of what we have so dearly nursed.
Then ripping twinge and rending flip:
Lo! Now to it we feel averse.
Forgetting, dropping off the mind
Is vital since when overtaxed
We need a purgative to slide
Off some odd extras to relax
And suck some new experience
To be reborn to vie nouvelle
It's part of us, our nature, hence,
These lapses are not nonpareil.

***
Now, to prehensile memories
Which link us to Vergangene.
Such edit our entries
To Diaries Past, and stubbornly
And stoutly we cling to transient,
Frail, flitting, airy, ephemeral
So memory's cohesive agent,
Our humanity's true herald!
You can be truly called a Man
If you have past, - existence-gist;
But if your brain is full of bran
And sawdust, you become a wisp,
Bourne by the winds to nowhere
You are a naught, a zero, nil
You're not alive but a cadaver
With no body, mind and will!

***
The linkage to the dear past
Is what we were, or we have been,
All things that molded us and cast
And it's projected to the screen
Of our being what we are.
Like cabbage made of leaves to peel,
Or tank refilled, reservoir.
Composed pasts, we live and feel.
There's a difference between
The "was" that's dead, out of reach
And spanning lenient "has been"
The first is breach, the second's bridge.
Each adds up to the harmony
To pave the path we call the Past.
Clad in its webby armory,
We look back placed, not outcast.

***
To sudden change, or a U-turn
That can disrupt the ordered course.
A revolution, overturn,
Frustration, and much even worse…
Once great World Shaker Ghengis Khan
Said: "Have no fear, if you've done;
If fear, do not even try"
At changes people got a fright.
Myself of change has been afraid,
Stuck in the rut of daily grind,
But has cropped up my weird dread, -
I broke loose, none can me bind
For what I lusted to pursue.
The fateful step of my design
Has come to fall. Bright vistas new
To luring summits me assign!
We all sometimes must welcome change:
It brings astuteness and insight.
To new displays one is engaged,
And takes a sturdy stand for fight!
You know, it takes much grit and guts,
For dear things to be forsaken, -
You meddle, scruple, hear "tut-tuts",
And moment comes when all is shaken
To serendipitous reverse, -
Alea jacta, no remorse.
And at a point of no return
You shall not make a backward turn!
So, change's like aftermath relief,
A Promised Land of vital needs.
Now in a rut, then comes a whiff
And lifts you up. Sores, ennui,
Frets, cares, incongruities
Are left below, yon afar.
A change is babe newborn. It is
A kiss of Fortune, Mardi Gras!