Our Way, Friend and Friends

(“My Way” is a song written by Jacques Revaux, Claude Francois, Gilles Thibaut, Paul Anka—popularly recorded by Elvis Presley and by Frank Sinatra)

“And now, the end is near
So I face the final curtain”

A melancholy song about endings
Though it’s kind of a conceit

Not based on final assessment
Or judgment in life

But an expression, a claim
A kind of righteous claim on life

“Regrets, I’ve had a few
But then again, too few to mention”

Yes, we have regrets, and I don’t know
About too few

I would change things; so, I
Think, might you

We don’t act, we don’t choose
In a vacuum of discretion, since

What we enact, from inner to outer
Performance, affects others, too

It does—we might think, one by
One, we have no power

And what we do does not matter
But we do, and it does

“The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way”

Well, the blows fall all around
And others are affected, too

The song is a cheat—though I like
The tune—for there is good

In the reality of knowing we are not
Isolate, even in responsibility

We work together, however
Unconsciously

So let’s do it consciously
And so we have: we have worked

Together, and for what we’ve made
I’m thankful

Thank you, thank you, each and all, for
Making it, not one

But more than one
For doing it our way

Our way, better
Our way, real

Our way, our way

C L Couch