Listen to audio
“ Life Is But A Minute ”
– held implied as a lifetime –
The Journey starts
Tho soon too fast,
And way off chart
Predestined cast,
Scarce one recalls
What life is to last,
The span of its all
Save less ye forget,
Said be our lifeline
This nascence day,
Thus a minute past
Had found its way,
A birth ye may ask,
As it came together
Seeks its short stay,
In echo of ones other…
Life soon will wither
While none to waste
Pardon my rancour,
Of they who crowd
Or find to anchor,
On my fleeting pace
With so little living,
I reason make haste…
With hint to soon rest,
Lying neath memories
Of its life’s alleged fest,
My back to its epitaph
For all who have been,
Knew well to find daft
Held implied as a lifetime,
Denies life is but a minute!
© Jean-Jacques Fournier
Music, One Minute Waltz, (1847) Fryderyk Chopin
Poetry on a canapé 
There is so much in this poem, Jean-Jacques. Last night, Frances and her sister “zoomed” for the first time. I enjoyed listening to their reminiscing of old times. There were so many wonderful stories about places that are no longer and events that will never happen again. Life is indeed but a minute, with each minute precious, but memories are the record of a lifetime. May we continue to make the best memories possible.
And may we continue to have memories worthy of remembering, thus so among the minutes of overload volumes of unworthiness, details of which require no reminding . How, pray tell, will we ever protect our fading memories, as fade they eventually must and will, from the tricksters who keep devising ways for the ultimate, George Orwell’s Big Brother, already well entrenched in our lives…!
My dear friend, your poetry is a shield of protection for our fading memories. In the midst of all the noise and confusion, it is the still small voice that prevails, that overcomes, that brings us to a new understanding. Thank you for your gift of poetry, Jean-Jacques.
As Rebecca notes, our writing will protect our fading memories. One of my favorite quotes about writing is from Gunter Kinert: “As long as one writes, ruin is averted. It doesn’t all slip away . . .”
Needed encouraging words from both Rebecca and yourself. Words to build on so as to convincingly write and speak out effectively against the staid empty words that disguises the incompetence and inability of they whom we continue to choose to do right !
Jean-Jacques
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Clarity and passion of expression win out over staid and empty words every time. Press on, Jean-Jacques!
So poignant. So true. A minute. A blink. A lifetime of memories.
Thank you, Paulette… Somehow and in retrospect as a youngster, having heard mother say of time passing too fast, find only now fully appreciate that ever hurrying silent memory, of a lifetime of memories, enlarging and repeating, the while hoping the imaging shan’t too soon blur.
Jean-Jacques
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