No New Order Of Things Poem by Robert Sheridan

No new order of things had been instituted
Not likely that there would be
Father’s things were gone from his life
After being placed there by the human factory.

Exchanged a word or two
With the clerical crew
They wanted to find out the truth
I suppose – concerning one of their ‘brothers’.

From father’s life we tried to piece together a few old remembrances
But they broke off abruptly at the time he suddenly went away
He had already removed them
Except for loose thoughts – all incomprehensible to an outsider.

Nothing of value, particularly nothing elaborated is in existence
The memories died along with him
As he lay in the coffin, sweeter, milder and lovelier –
Then any of us remembered him.

It was very apparent what a mastermind he was
But he ceased to think when his brain sank into eternal rest
Now someplace else
Due to the unfairness of hampering strictures.

Circumstances beyond our control
Are equipped to exhibit a mighty scope of powerful influences
Their secrecy exacted by ‘business-like’ competition –
Blocking any outside interference when running the gambit.

'Oh, your father was looking forward to this,
it signaled his emancipation from life’s chains,
made so irksome by others,
his last payment was to be made to us, so to speak – his resignation.'

'Oh, don’t worry, he can now devote his time fully,
to the literary elaboration of his vast earthly experience,
for secrecy will no longer bound him,
he will reap from the recognition of wider circles – an unvarying devotion
to heavenly duties.'

Could this be true? I asked myself
Did life really begrudge him?
Was he cruelly denied by a particular removal from enjoyment’s activities?
Was this the worst harrowing of father’s pathetic life’s circumstances.?

For the sake of his happiness, which he should have found in his daily tasks,
and which should have outweighed much of his previous misery,
we now owe a deep grudge against the hand of fate,
and the ignorant human elements that abetted its pitiful forwardness.

Father was confident that he would live to eighty-three
And that it was not natural for a busy man
To talk explicitly on any subject before it was fully exhausted
And one should be allowed to follow it into its full leisure.

But, the general weakening of his heart was greater than anyone knew
Including himself, and the time came long before – twenty years before
Father died in full consciousness, but totally ignorant of the weariness of death
He simply fell asleep and all was over.

Without pain, without fear, only very tired
His rosy face and beautifully serene expression bore this out
He seemed asleep in perfect health and calm, as if in a dream
Mother told us of the way to remember him.

'2007'