Silken Threads

Silken threads

Fine, frail, faint

Woven into a pattern

Weaving a thousand lives

The Fates hold the yarn

They spin it around

Knitting here, snipping there

To fit the great big Plan

And no one sees those threads

Those faintly, ghostly threads

Or how it affects a man

Among a thousand such men

The threads of his life

Gently chafe at the frame

That holds it down in place

To make the pattern whole

At first the threads relent

Happily to the Plan

But as Time flows by

Joy would then resent

The threads chafe

And they stretch

They wear thin

Till they snap

One by one

They break free

One by one

They tear apart

Till finally

Only a few are left behind

A few silken threads

That hold a man’s life

There’s a burden they carry

Of living, of caring

It’s just a tenuous grasp

Any moment, they could snap

Why? O Fates why?

Do you let the threads hold

When lost is all hope

When it’s impossible to cope

Why? O Fates why?

Do you snip away some threads

Before their time is up

Before they have given up

What is this pattern?

What is this Plan?

That’s unfair, unjust

To the threads that make them

To the threads that hold them

To the threads

Fine, frail, faint

To Fate’s own silken threads