Some Kind of Sonnet for a
Mayfly
If it be true what learned people say,
The Mayfly lives for but a day.
I’ll not shed even the tiniest tear,
Or wish he’d make it one more year.
Instead I would concentrate on just how grand,
To live without next week’s demand.
And among the simple Mayfly facts is,
He never once has to file his taxes,
Or contemplate the waning moon,
Or anticipate any time but soon.
Never repay but only borrow,
Or check the weather for tomorrow.
It might be luxury, if I may be bold,
To be unconcerned about growing old.
No time for beddy-by, nor alarms to be set,
No time for longing or for regret.
Not to mention that on his day in May,
He might decide to alight or just fly away.
Another thing any Mayfly knows,
He won’t need to shop for Winter clothes.
Never wondering while watching the setting sun
Why living seems over before its begun.
The Mayfly is the only who can truly say
That the Mayfly has so truly had his day.
At eight in the morn his youth would flower,
Old age a twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth hour.
Never needing to strain his brain to remember,
Where he was on the twenty-fourth of September.
Oh Mayfly how strangely fortunate,
Is the lifetime brief and immediate.
Mayfly whose lifetime is so fleetly fleeting,
It would seem so surely worth repeating.
2006 Daniel Thomas Moran