Summation Poem by Ivan Kovacs

My thoughts drift like diaphanous mists above a marshland,
Where Time keeps weaving endless variations of an unending theme.
Time past, time present, and time future lose their significance,
And become part of the fabric of Life's intricate dream.

I am no longer young, and signs of frailty are beginning to show.
Life has never been easy, and even in the brightest landscape of my youth
Nettles grew alongside hollyhocks, and blood drops
Have left their trail on the new-fallen snow.

Moments of pure joy were rare,
And thus, all the more precious -
They needed tending with special care.

I knew what it meant to be enslaved where tyranny thrives,
Even as a child I witnessed how highly
Freedom was valued when paid for with lives.

But on clearer days and in better years
I have seen mountaintops covered in pure white snow.
And seen love grow like a deepening sea and a widening shore,
After the cooling of passion's first fiery glow.

I have survived shipwreck and walked through fire,
And lost my reason as I sank into the mire.
I have swung like a pendulum
Between the poles of my two warring selves,
But after all the storms and hurricanes
I regained my strength and banked my gains.

And now, both battle-scarred, and with a few leaves
Still sticking in my hair from an old and dusty laurel crown,
I think of life's propensities, and the hand of destiny
As it moves by uplifting - and moves by bearing down...

I have but one prayer when my heart is to be weighed
On those fine-tuned scales in the realm of the dead:
Let it be as light as a feather - and like a falcon
Free of its hood - take wing towards the sun,
Because it's earthbound, fledgling time is done.