By D.C.Young
Once there was a young man
who had dreamt that he could fly,
then he left for his horizon
where the earth would meet the sky.
He grabbed a corporate ladder
and ascended toward the top,
fueled by his blind ambition
and a drive he could not stop.
Though each year as he climbed higher
than he had the year before,
he never was quite satisfied
and always wanted more.
He hoped to find his Shangri-La
but somehow every day,
each day that he got closer
his horizon moved away.
Then one day his compass broke
its needle gone askew,
with no way left to navigate
it slipped beyond his view.
With no horizon left in sight
he tried to turn around,
but suddenly ran out of sky
and crashed into the ground.
Emerging from the wreckage
in a field of burnt debris,
his future gone before his eyes
and no place left to be.
He learned too late that great success
required such sacrifice,
and reaching one’s horizon
can exact too great a price.
I know because I was that man
that dreamt that he could fly,
but I lost my horizon and then
crashed down from the sky.
Tomorrows then became todays
as sadly I would learn,
todays became my yesterdays
that never would return.
I couldn’t turn back the hands of time
that quickly passed me by,
or rewrite then the life I lived
no matter how I’d try.
Tonight I wish I’d lived each day
as if it was my last,
and treasured every moment
that too soon became my past.
To those in search of Shangri-La
my message is to you,
that Hilton’s tale was just a myth,
to read but not pursue.
