Business As Usual Poem by Harry St Vincent Beechey

The sun is shining still

And people go about their business

As though nothing has happened.

Children laugh - Birds sing.

The paper was delivered as usual.

Extraordinary, the Ordinary,

Despite everything.

And I - who have lost a love,

Whose world is upside down,

Am surprised to see it right way up.



She was so gentle in her rejection.

A nice lunch - a glass of wine -

And then the coup de grace.

It is over.

‘No Fault', says the I Ching ‘

The Superior Man goes with the flow

‘Accepts the dictates of the Tao'.

And I accept - I flow.

Down - down the waterfall.

Whirled in senseless circles,

Racing through the rapids,

Submerged rocks ripping at my self-esteem,

Doubts dragging me down.

Gasping I surface from the depths of a dark pool

Of ‘Might have beens.'

Bedraggled, I look again upon the World

In which the sun is shining still.

And people go about their business

Just as though nothing has happened!



© copyright 1989 H.St.V. Beechey