Non non regrette rien …
How is it that all our apparent mistakes
Have made us what we are?
And if we are what we are, because of mistakes
Why should our children, who might wish to follow in our footsteps
Not want to make the same mistakes? choices …
Mistakes in life are usually irreversible actions we take
Whilst we are too nieve to recognise ‘the error of our ways’
I often lament the passage of time and the ‘mistakes’ I have made
Convinced that had I been just a ‘tiny bit’ more aware
I might have done it better
Might find myself now in better circumstances
Might have less problems, less worries
But who is to say that had I taken any of the other paths
I now feel certain that I should have taken
My circumstances would be better, my worries less,
No, as a Christian I must assume
For richer or poorer
The path I chose was the right one for me
I must assume my circumstances
Could not be better, my worries not less
Accepting my past will enable me
To face my present and choose my future choices …
All the facts are not always at our disposal
We may have forgotten the reasons for our choices
The decisions we made
Of course, it is a ready-made exit from reality
Especially I suppose for those
Whose life has turned somewhat sour
And can we of a truth say
We never made a mistake
Never took the wrong turning
Never said no when we should have said yes
or visa versa? choices …
Yes, we are free to choose
Choice is all around us
And only experience seems to teach us
Which choice is right?
Even then, we have no crystal ball
We cannot always know the answer
The mistakes I made, were my choices then
My choices now could be
My mistakes of the future
Whatever ~ they have and they will
Decide the pathway I have trod and will tread
The wonder is that choice is there
And that I can choose
That is wonder!
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writtenbyedenbray05.01.1990
#author’s note ~ In keeping with my decision to publish all my written essays and poems as an archive for my children, I now include Non non regrette rien on this site.
I’m not sure I could, with hand-on-heart, quite match the doe-eyed sincerity, political optimism and full rounded belligerence of honest faith contained in this piece that I wrote twenty-eight years ago but that I now applaud unreservedly just twenty-eight years later.
It is clearly positive, right-wing and determined but carrying a soulful ladle of compassion and humility as a temper, a guide rope that battens down, attached to a temple of common sense and most uncommon wisdom.
writtenbyedenbray21.06.2018
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edenbray - the poet - SITE A 