The whetstone that hones your senses sharp.
The teacher that tells you once.
The wild horse that is chased
Then ridden, but not broken.

The safety-catch to play with.
The tooth-ache to be probed.
That last mistake, regretted.
That nagging voice, insistant.

Your ego seat-belt.
Your sanity checked.
Your heartbeat’s throttle.
Your life’s respect.

Fight not flight,
An energy incarnate.
Save to her offsprings’ grasp
No beast of burden she.
A fire this bright 
You cannot hope to tame it.
A life alight and so aflame.
So free.

Ferocious feline grace
Her steps come padding.
Woe to the luckless prey 
That shares her trail.
Not sport but need
Shall spur her deadly instinct.
Dealing doom
With an even paw
With a steely eye
With a vice-like jaw
And a flick of her fatal tail.

© Pete (Nov 2007) 

I heard this on Sunday and it is still going around in my head. Powerful words.

So how long does a man live, finally?
by Brian Patten

So how long does a man live, finally?
And how much does he live while he lives?
We fret, and ask so many questions -
Then it comes to us
The answer is so simple.

A man lives for as long as we carry him inside us,
For as long as we carry the harvest of his dreams.
For as long as we ourselves live,
Holding memories in common, a man lives.

His wife will carry his man’s scent, his touch;
His children will carry the weight of his love;
One friend will carry his arguments;
Another will hum his favourite tunes;
Another will share his terrors.

And the days will pass with baffled faces,
Then the weeks, then the months.
Then there will be a day when no question is asked
and the knots of grief will loosen in the stomach
And the puffed faces will calm.

And on that day he will not have ceased,
But will have ceased to be separated by death.
How long does a man live, finally?

A man lives so many different lengths of time.