Being an Old Man

       In 62 years I have been a child and I have been a man. I have been a soldier, seen, walked and dealt with death. I have been fear and hate and I have feared and been fearsome. I have run scared as fire and flaming steel rained down on me and my fellow soldiers. I have seen those I love die and watched as those who decades before tried to kill me come to my country and enjoy the freedoms my friends died for as if it was as free and natural as the air and the sun that warmed their faces. 

        I wake each morning In a world where innocent children die un named and those who kill them say they are the will and hand of God, I try to find purpose and reason but find only madness. I listen to a child with cancer, a politician who has grown rich selling hate and distrust and a mullah asking young men to blow themselves up to kill people neither of them know, all saying that they know God is with them. 

        When I sit and watch my mind as it struggles to make some sense of all this what I see is a mouse caught in a maze that has no exit, no beginning and no end. I ask myself if I made this maze or perhaps I am the maze. What wisdom is there to be had here? I was sure by now I would have at least a clue but alas I don’t. I know a billion people who say they have the answer, they have the key. These are the ones who seem the most deluded and do the most harm, where they walk the flowers wilt and only shadows follow them to their endings. But I still see beauty in the sunset, and laugh when babies smile. I think one day I will hear a song and it will be my song to sing. Perhaps one day we will all hear our song and dance out of the maze into a world with no questions or answers, just really good friends and lots of space to dance in.