Life Poem by Olumide Sowemimo

Like a game of cards;
The hand that is dealt you represents determinism;
The way you play it is free will.

The great blessings of mankind are within us
And within our reach; but we shut our eyes,
Like people in the dark,

We fall foul upon the very thing we search for,
without finding it.
Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing
in our own sunshine

It is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience
treacherous, judgment difficult
It is a tragedy for those who feel, a comedy for those who think

It is like a library owned by the author;
In it are a few books which he wrote himself,
But most of them were written for him by him

To prepare for life is to begin to live;
That is the best way;
It is a voyage that’s homeward bound.
The whole of life is but a moment of time.

Our duty is use it, not to misuse it.
It is a rich strain of music, suggesting a realm too fair to be.
The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague.
Who shall say where one ends, and the other begins?

To get the most out of life is to look upon it as an adventure.
There are no classes in life for beginners: ;
Right away you are always asked to deal with what is most difficult.
To live is like to love-all reason is against it,
And all healthy instinct for it

Life is like the dice that, falling, still show a different face.
So life, though it remains the same, is always presenting different aspects.
Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible sun within us.

As I grow to understand life less and less,
I learn to love it more and more.