"For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday"

Outside the birds are singing
and dawn is breaking,
why are you crying?

I am grieving.
Grieving for a piece of work
that has been nurtured and
carefully handled for four years,
and in its presentation to the examiners
was deemed to be not up to academic standard.
In term's of the world's suffering
this barely even registers
you may say,
but in my life, in my personal understanding
this is a painful blow to accept.

Yet it must be accepted
if I am to move forward
and amend and rewrite
this piece of work that has become
my child over the past four years.
It must be accepted if I am
finally, to let the child go,
to live by its own merits
and stand strong enough
to be buffeted by life's winds and storms.

The mind is quick to produce
a maelstrom of thoughts and objections,
of 'what if' and 'if only'
and 'isn't hindsight a wonderful thing?'
Yet deep in the quiet of the heart,
in the still pool of watching
that is miraculously unaffected
by all of this
I know this hurt will pass.
Steps will be taken,
new research will begin
"for life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday"*
and outside the birds are singing
and a new dawn is breaking.

© 6 Apr 2013
* Kahlil Gibran

for life goes not backward ... audio