Embrace the Change

“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”
                              Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr

Time waits for no man.
How I wish I could refute that.
But here I sit, about to finish
my seventh decade, knowing
there are things I will never see,
people and places I will never know.

I look to you, my children, with pride,
and I call to you with hope
for a bright future and a reminder
to live each moment as if it were your last.
No two are the same, and nothing is routine.

You will have losses you will overcome.
In those times, feel my embrace.
You will have accomplishments
I will never know, but know
that my pride for you will never end.
That is the one thing that will never change.

This poem is my response to Day 7 at napowrimo.net, where Maureen asks us to write a poem that argues against, or somehow questions, a proverb or saying. “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” loosely translates to “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” It’s from Les Guêpes, a satirical monthly journal printed in the 1840s by Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr.

Image source: geralt at pixabay.com