The picture is
Of a young man, attempting
To ride a horse.
His pose is strained, half
Crouched in the saddle, painfully
Aware of being observed.
I am told, by those
That should know, that
This is me at twenty-three.
But since then every
Cell in this fragile human
Form has been altered by
Nature's alchemy.
And if the self is an
Emergent property of time
And 'I' am only 'I' through the
Chance concatenations of
Fitful experience, then between
The one who rides and the
One who turns the paper
In transient hands, there
Is a great gulf fixed which
Cannot be made up by
Memory, story spinning or
Unwitting invention.
When one idol falls, another
Irresistibly rises in its place.
Some new stranger may yet
Remark on this dying moment
Who shares my face.
Simon Peter Iredale
Copyright: Simon Peter Iredale
Last poem by this writer
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