Life Songs

“Twenty-fourth of May is the Queen’s birthday
If you don’t give us a holiday will all run away”

Funny how they stick with us, those rhyming little words,
From when we were just little tykes, their meaning quite absurd;
For holiday we had of course; Victoria was dead;
But skipping rhymes were part of life, and thus such words were said.

For little kids that is their world, a world of make-believe,
Quite sheltered from the stormy blast of adult life we lead;
Not always – but an ideal that, or so we’ve come to think;
No doubt there was an era with the cave-man on the brink.

That was a time of spears, and rocks, stone hammers, knives, and sticks;
When “one for all, and all for one”, merged with tradition’s tricks;
Their lives were short, death part of life, infections took their toll,
And children’s games prepared the kids to play their adult roles.

Take Romulus and Remus, when abandoned in the wild –
Became the sucklings of a wolf when each was but a child;
Somehow they grew to strapping men, one slew his brother, “thus!”
While building up the walls of Rome – a rough and tumble fuss.

And so it was for Men of God, those heroes known today:
They grew in times of turbulence when warfare was the way;
They came to see as normal life, wild chaos round about;
Those men grew up quite rapidly, their future was in doubt.

For in or out of family, community, and care,
Our children need protection, and when hurt, they need repair;
But kids can bounce while they’re still young, resilience is a fact;
Affected and affecting, interactive they come back.

So coddling and pampering is not the best of ways;
Kids are immune to adult life, for in their mind their plays
A private world of make-believe, of fantasy, and games;
And as they grow, it fades away – it's wisdom that remains.

For in our rhymes, and childish games, and yarns of days of yore,
Are found the keys to adult life, a base for building more;
Remembered in such skipping rhymes – response is swift and sure,
To situations which emerge – to crisis (culture’s cure).

Ezekiel’s dream’s a case-in-point – he learned to hear God’s Word
Within his night-time fantasies, so when as adult heard
God talk to him about those bones of slain out in the field,
And how to help their relatives, he knew to guidance yield.

He said, “Rise up O men of God; be open to God’s plan;
He’s giving you new lease on life; returning soon your land;
A Spirit He will pour into your put-together selves,
And take away the bitterness of your traumatic Hells.”

He spoke; they listened; headed God; engaged in life around;
Soon song returned to hearts and minds; saw wealth and hope abound;
Six decades hence, their children’s kids who’d grown up in such lore,
Returned to old Jerusalem, there hope and life restored.

So what’s your current attitude? What passes to your kids?
Though there’s been trouble in your life, is Spirit in your midst?
Have they by watching how you coped, and your priorities,
Emerged as adults, standing tall, ’fore whom all evil flees?

Six decades down this road of life, when you and I are gone,
Will words of life, and hope, and faith, return when life’s gone wrong?
We do not know what they will face, like parents in our lives,
But in the songs we choose to sing, our faith and hope survives.

navigation