About the time one desultory year
slipped into another
And everywhere, all around me, well-laid
plans were falling into place
And mine were blowing up in my face
Immaturity willed itself
To stand up and make a name
Though neither a virtue nor a vice
But looked upon with scorn nonetheless
In a tepid world of virtues preaching
themselves
With monotonous regularity and unbounded
affectation
It was immaturity that held me together
Pushed me towards stubborn optimism at
first
And then just plain stubbornness
As I was gathering my thoughts in
earnest
About what ought to be done
Of a future ever present
The eternal validity of a life-plan
cannot be denied
To those born to order and rigidity
The steps they took neatly outlined to
conformity
For if a thousand follow the path most
certain
‘Tis expected the thousandth and first
would do the same
But a leap into thin air was what I
opted for
Even if I land among nettles and thorns,
and that failure could wait at every
turn
For who can tell unless one tries
What’s in store for the impetuous soul?
Carefree it wanders, o’er prudence and foresight
And truth be told, when money is scarce
Reason too is scarce;
The call of the whim is strong, there-in
lies a foolhardy gamble
In times such as these, the saddest words
are 'you can’t'
Wherein an oft repeated hope is enough to
blind one
To much of the mundane realism
And to all of our hardened pragmatism
I listened, yet again, to the whisperer
of idle thoughts
And off I went to chase a glimpse of
what they promised
And now that I have been struck
by the damnation of dreams
with equanimity slowly being swept
into a tidal stream
Immaturity has well-nigh placed me
on the path of crass ridicule and
insensitive mirth
So a fool’s wisdom is all that I am
to be left with
and nothing else to gain, no not even a
dour outlook
but the stoic composure of a wet rook
as Immaturity’s grip gets washed away
under a spell of the cold and sombre rain
