The other day, we had heard some disturbing news of a close friend of the family. Although we had kept in regular contact, little did we realize that time and circumstance can be so cruel at times. Disease, disaster and death; these events are never in our control, although man tries his best to master them.
The events of yesterday brought to mind, the words of Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s poem, “People”. Each of our lives is like a map, with a course, evidence and impressions that we leave behind when we finally end our time. While time is never in our control, the route that we take along with the diversions, destinations and rest stops is ours alone. Decision, choices and changes are always in our hands, hence using them wisely is what we can and should do.
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” Barack Obama
People
No people are uninteresting.
Their fate is like the chronicle of planets.
Nothing in them in not particular,
and planet is dissimilar from planet.
And if a man lived in obscurity
making his friends in that obscurity
obscurity is not uninteresting.
To each his world is private
and in that world one excellent minute.
And in that world one tragic minute
These are private.
In any man who dies there dies with him
his first snow and kiss and fight it goes with him.
There are left books and bridges
and painted canvas and machinery
Whose fate is to survive.
But what has gone is also not nothing:
by the rule of the game something has gone.
Not people die but worlds die in them.
Whom we knew as faulty, the earth’s creatures
Of whom, essentially, what did we know?
Brother of a brother? Friend of friends?
Lover of lover?
We who knew our fathers
in everything, in nothing.
They perish. They cannot be brought back.
The secret worlds are not regenerated.
And every time again and again
I make my lament against destruction.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
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