Tears

Should a lifetime be measured in years?
Maybe tears would be more appropriate
When we’re born the first thing we do is cry
Then tears for hunger, tears for loneliness, tears for pain
As we aged our tears became a sign of our emotions
Not the instinctive, reflex action of a baby
As children we began to cry for loss
Our mother waved goodbye on our first school day
Our favourite toy was lost
Then we realised that tears got us noticed
Our wisdom grew as we aged
We didn’t want to go to bed
We wanted that toy, that game, that cake
And tears had results
Then the real tears came
The tears that no-one saw
The tears we cried alone
For ourselves
A first broken heart – oh what tears
A second – more tears, the pain wasn’t easier
Then a third relationship, an engagement
Tears of joy
The relationship ended – what tears then
A shattered heart
A fourth relationship, a marriage
Tears of happiness, of contentment
A mortgage, bills, work
Tears of worry
And children were born
Ecstatic tears and worried tears
And then the flood gates opened
A parent died and then the next
For you and partner too
When all the relatives die, what stands between you
And heavens gate?
Tears of absolute sorrow, absolute longing
Then your partner of a lifetime dies
Would there be a worst imaginable sorrow?
Tears come in floods like none before
Tears that might never stop
Tears that never did stop

Tears for all of life’s experiences
And life is just experience
Experience makes us age and grow

Should a lifetime be measured in years?
Maybe tears would be more appropriate