It did not seem a lonely life

It did not seem a lonely life
Christopher Bogart

It did not seem a lonely life;
But just a life I’d live alone.

A path that seemed so ordinary,
So all at once ordained,
Seemed laid upon an even plain with
Little broken glass,
Few stones.

The silence of an empty home
In time, just seemed so comforting,
So near that I could clearly hear
The blowing noise of heat and air,
The dropping ice cubes in a white plastic pan,
The regular rotations of the ceiling fan,
The isolated ticking of the clock,
That punctuated passing time.

I rarely stopped to question much
The absence of a warming touch,
A tender hand,
A whisper in the dark.

The wind and rain on stormy nights
Pounded the silence,
Washed away my past regrets,
All traces of missed happiness,
Past pain.

Stark duty always seemed to drive me on
Through days, each born on soft routine,
Hand strung, and drifting on the stream
Passed silent doubt,
Without rhyme nor reason,
I question not what seemed
To be so reasonable.

And, in the end, it did not seem
That it would be such a lonely life.
But just a life I’d live alone.