Life is Fleeting

Oh, I’ve been blessed,

white, male, American.

Yes, thank you, Jesus,

I’ve been blessed,

two great children,

a girl and a boy,

good kids,

smart like their Mother,

now both off to college,

with me as happy

as I could be

in our empty nest

with my beautiful wife,

who has put up with me

all these twenty-six years,

putting up with all

my idiosyncrasies,

never asking me to change,

always there for me,

with her endless smiles

and warm, sensual touch.

Boy, have I’ve been blessed

working hard

climbing up

the slippery slope

of the corporate ladder,

now V.P. of Sales,

with my corner office

and young secretary,

who knows exactly how

and when I want my coffee;

and soon I’ll retire to a life

of playing golf

at the Country Club

whenever I want.

Yes, life’s been good,

                                    but

sitting here reading that

the circus is coming to town

makes me think back

to when I was a boy,

such fond memories

of the traveling circus

that came through our town

every year without fail.

I would get a free pass

for watering the elephants,

how I loved those elephants.

Looking back now, sitting here,

it might have served me well

to have run off

and joined that circus,

escaping into that world of

lions, tigers, and dancing bears.

Boy, I would have made

a great circus clown.