TE DEUM LAUDAMUS at 75

Unfinished.  Not to be completed.
Hoary hopes appear defeated,
myriad questions wait for answers.
Shall I still pretend to weigh the chances,
keep on cutting Gordian knots?
Muat I recalibrate my thoughts?

A long apprenticeship to live
is surely over.  Here a narrative
of sailing out in search of port,
reaching out and falling short.
What lies beyond my Parthenon?
Must I still cross a Rubicon?

Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit[1]!
Planning for the future was a youthful habit,
asking questions, watching others: Now I reminisce.
Not everything succeeded: Life is hit and miss.
With equanimity I ruminate on fateful
moments, smiling seasons — reasons to be grateful.

Sure, when I was twenty-five —
and single — all was overdrive —
each sunrise was a given.
Then at fifty, still untamed and unforgiven,
battling jealousies and office strife,
I found my sustenance in married life.

I must confess that I still harbour appetite,
bewitching beauty can my spirits light.
Adventures lived — and some imagined — taught
me to distinguish fantasy from fact. As Argonaut
my early loves were lost, but not in vain. In bonhomie
they heralded my choice for sane monogamy.

Nothing can surpass in passion and in joy subdued
the years of living for each other, not in solitude,
in constant sharing, listening, commiserating,
working at it every day, alliterating, conjugating
mutually: “Wer ein holdes Weib errungen”
must proclaim his luck! … Der grosse Wurf ist ihm gelungen. [2]

Each sunrise jointly lived — a gift,
each sunset an inspiring lift.
Now, three times twenty-five seems late …
Perhaps an opportunity to abdicate.
No longer can I start anew…
Yet on the roses I see dew.

I teach beneath my virtual pergola
and learn from students as did Seneca:
Docendo discimus [3]– what blessing
every day to keep on learning!
Students bring me fresh perspectives,
echoes of my youth in lively retrospectives.

Life is not a solitary tree -- is continuity,
no solipsism but community.
We see the rabbits spring, hear sparrows sing,
while in the distance church bells ring.
We tend our garden as we gently breathe,
while weaving fragile flowers in a wreath.

Repeating rites of day and night,
four seasons that continuously unite.
Eternal tides in clockwork rise and fall,
enhance the rhythm of the ocean’s roll.
We hear the shells that crackle on the shore,
perceive recurring breezes, showers that restore.

When navigating to and well beyond my equinox,
I questioned orthodoxies, reasoned in and out the box,
resolved to challenge mainstream narratives,
proactively pursued alternatives.
I knew that progress came from rebels – Galileo,
Gandhi, Martin Luther King – volente Deo [4].

We homo sapiens are but nature’s representatives.
In awe we stand before the dignity of all that lives,
all creatures of this earth, above in air, beneath the sea,
each blossom, flower, wheatfield, chestnut tree.
We seniors recognize that nature holds eternal youth,
that every leaf and butterfly show avenues to truth.

Although I’m not prepared to leave,
I sense that I approach the eve.
I know that leave I must,
as every shadow … human dust.
If pulvis umbra sumus [5], what remains?
Alone what love and memory sustains.

The kiss of life I take, accept my fate …
But am I losing faith?  Again, too late?
The hearts of many friends and family
have ceased to beat.  How can that be?
They live in life-like memory,
they live in me as were they out to sea.

Life means creation: Procreation —
Giving life to every generation.
Stefan saw the light but did not carry on.
We know not why we lost our son.
He would have written many pages
of our lives, expand us through the ages.

Lucky they who love and marry young,
in mutual trust to grow together decades long,
renewing genesis. But we, how can we fill our void?
A godchild, niece or nephew rushes past -- fast as an asteroid.
Thank God for merry friends who cheer us up,
who even keep their promises and follow-up.

My many books are no Ersatz for children
— or for boisterous grandchildren…
Books can never cry – or laugh,
belong inscribed on my lean epitaph.
But was the journey worth the trials,
the early pains and self-denials?

Yes, each daybreak had its worth,
each hour was a miracle on earth —
from mother’s soft caress
to that first love, first yes.
Each day has been a gift, each kiss
well worth the pain and artifice.

I cherished each infatuation,
joyful spiritual inebriation.
Loving, being loved is all that matters.
Now we feast, as melancholy scatters.
Sharing joy and sorrow is our win-win recipe,
forgiving when we err, a tested strategy.

Happiness is more than pleasure, but a state of zen:
communion with our fellow men
-- and women too!  Means being one
with nature, watching on a lake – a swan.
All pleasure is ephemeral, as we all know.
Felicity is intuition tell us Cicero.

At times I muse on going back to start anew,
pretending to pick up where I left off, renew
old friendships, hoping to undo what I did wrong,
apologize for hurtful words, attune my farewell song.
A second go at life, to reach what I once dreamed …
Bereft, regrets remain, my conscience unredeemed.

Alas, the metronome is slowing down: For me
less scherzos [6] – more adagios in a minor key!
Beethoven’s Ninth [7], the universal melody,
Urlicht [8], Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony [9],
Um Mitternacht [10] and Strauss’ string therapy:
his Metamorphosen [11] that buoys my reverie.

I’m ready now to face the end,
but first I shall attempt to mend
what can be fixed, my garden tend [12],
make peace with others, ditch the trend,
the Zeitgeist, groupthink, “flavour of the week”.
No panem et circensis [13]:  Just sincerity I seek.

I have not dressed my bucket list as yet,
but try instead to give more than I get,
pray consciously in simple gratitude
for all those years of happy plenitude --
together — lived in our harmonious house.
I light a lively candle to my spouse.

As bottom line Ovidius advocates discretion:
Bene vixit qui bene latuit [14] – a wise suggestion
to escape attention, envy, sterile competition.
Wonder why I heeded not this proposition,
joined the rat-race, let my vanity prevail,
for vanitas vanitatis [15] is also Alfred’s tale.

One day we’re here, next moment maybe not…
Should this be cause to be distraught?
We try to practice carpe diem [16] -- each and every hour,
conscious of the words on our clock tower:
latet ultima hora [17].
Thus we toast to life, to us, to our aurora. 

[1] “Perhaps someday I will remember this fondly”. Vergilius, Aeneid 1.203

[2] Friedrich von Schiller, An die Freude, “Who has won the great attempt to call a friend a friend, who has won a lovely wife, must celebrate his luck.” 

[3] Seneca, Letters to Lucilius (Book 1, letter 7, section 8)
[4] God willing.
[5] “We are dust and shadow”. Horatius, Odes, book IV, Ode VII, line 16.
[6] One of my favourite scherzos remains the second movement of Richard Strauss’ Symphonia Domestica, Opus 53.
[7] Opus 125 in D-minor, third movement, adagio molto et cantabile
[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR6_F6Fxf1k
[9] Symphony Nr. 2 in C minor, https://mahlerfoundation.org/mahler/compositions/symphony-no-2/symphony-no-2-manuscript/
[10] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWyJdYTA36M
[11] Study for 23 solo strings, composed April 1945 as a kind of In Memoriam to culture, in the light of the destruction of Europe during World War II.  Metamorphosen draws inspiration from Ovid’s Transformations, Beethoven’s Eroica and Goethe’s Zahme Xenien.  https://www.myclassicalnotes.com/2021/09/metamorphosen-by-richard-strauss/
[12] Voltaire, Candide, Chapter XXX « il faut cultiver notre jardin »
[13] Iuvenalis, Satires, 10.77–81.
[14] Ovidius, Tristia. III, 4, 25.
[15] Ecclesiastes, 1:2.
[16] “Pluck the day”, Horatius, Odes (I,11)
[17] “The final hour is hidden” slogan on many churches and sundials.

© Alfred de Zayas