Man in My Town

There was a man in my town

So full of foolish haste

That he grudged the thirty seconds

Any traffic light would waste.

He couldn't brook the small delay

Of keeping in the line

When cars were going round a curve --

It meant a loss of time.

He always took the gambler's chance;

How vainly he would grin

At the moments he was saving

By the trick of cutting in.

Pedestrians were a bother,

And they'd better move right fast

When he'd head in their direction

And would give his horn  a blast.

He saved split-seconds every day

By scaring to retreat

The children who would be at play

Along the sunny street.

Ah, cars were made for speed . . . why not?

He had no time to lose.

Let laggards slow their motors down

And idle -- if they choose.

But one day his maddened monster

Had turned berserk, in a breath,

As it bore down in destruction,

Like a juggernaut of death.

******

There is a man in my town

With time to comtemplate

That there's nothing quite so tragic

As the haunting words, "too late!"

Too late to turn a lad's shrill cry

To laughter that had been

The music of a neighborhood

That children play within.

Too late to blot a memory from

The one who gave him birth

With just the bleak reminder now

 -- A marker in the earth.

Too late to blank the vision

Of disaster he had wrought

For the gain of sordid minutes,

For the worthless time he's bought.

Too late to find atonement

In the caution he had learned,

Too late for any solace

Where a seared conscience burned.

There is a man in my town

Who is never now in haste;

Who would give his life's whole heritage

To have one deed erased!

(Copyright, 1940)