Another bottle of rum

Aug 12, 2023 Letters

Dear Editor,

He staggered along the street clutching a bottle of rum.

He faltered close to me; he had a story to tell.

He said with a smile but with a sadness in his voice:

“My friend, I have found sweet forgetfulness in what’s in my hand.

There’s more than medicine in this bottle—

it’s the very elixir that saves me from the ills of life.

I greet the day and sun with another bottle of rum,

and when I go to bed at night, it’s the bottle I hold still tight.

No teacher, friend or dear one has shown me the way;

the bottle calls out to me and like a believer I obey.”

Then I tapped him on the shoulder and said:

“Much of the world in some such state of drunkenness

though your much lauded bottle we may not embrace.

Our robot-like motions muffle the awareness of the hummingbird,

keeping us too busy and stealing our hallowed days.

How little we hear the blue saki singing on treetops.

How little we watch wildflowers dancing beside the lake.

And it would be a double drunkenness if we were to take

what’s in this bottle to save us from the raging tempest.

Beware of a forgetfulness—sleeping at high noon—

lest, before we know, the sands are through the neck of the hourglass.

Break the bottle and with it the illusion of a carefreeness.

Life’s a most precious thing to lose even for one priceless hour.”

Faithfully yours,

Haimnauth Cecil Ramkirath

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