No hour can call itself itself alone

No hour can call itself itself alone,
Each mutters on the heels of that before -
The potter’s clay is nought before it’s thrown,
But our lives are shaped by different law.

For each thought must make the first tomorrows’,
Each sigh or smile consolidate that dream -
Though we deny owning joys or sorrows,
‘Tis our minds that bend life’s travelling stream.

We, and we alone, are our worlds true -
We make, and see, the sunshine and the rain:
We paint our future selves to our own view,
Then blindly criticise our God in vain.

So what will change me but a diff’rent sight?
Then for that vision I must fight.

7/7/00