Drained!

"No man is an island, entire of itself...
any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind;
and therefore never send to know
for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
- John Donne

There I was
Making an emphatic point
In mid sentence;
Holding an audience
Engaged and spell-bound;
With the world as my oyster
Which I could prise open
With the sharp edge of my wit;
Where notable men and women
Had willingly and gladly
Lent me all their ears;
Just when two decades
Of rolling around
And plenty of reflection
Were deepening me enough
To say something
New, true and interesting;

My 'battery' of life
Suddenly failed on me
Leaving me frozen
And drained of energy,
Zapped of zest
Devoid of drive
Hollow of ideas
And no more imagination!
I was as good as dead
A zombie, no less
A shadow of my former self!
And to my great horror
I realised I had no battery 'charger'
That could breathe some life
Back into my tired and battered
Body, mind and soul.

In a moment of madness
Believing that I could propel
My own self forward
With no help from anyone,
I had dumped my charger
One sad day years ago
On my way up
The mountain of life.

And now it's far too late
To go in search of lost chargers
When I have little energy left
And I've become, in effect,
A prisoner within my body
Watching the last few seconds
Tick-tick-and tick away…
Not even having
Just enough energy
To bid a fond farewell
To the few I truly loved.

"I used to measure the Heavens,
now I measure the shadows of Earth.
The mind belonged to Heaven,
the body's shadow lies here."

- Johannes Kepler gesammelte Werke ((1570 - 1630), epitaph

Written on 26 Feb 2008