The Luck Of A Fool's Paradise Poem by Bryan Taplits

One goes along to get ahead
No one knows the tears yet to be shed
So one tramps along to the tune of his song
And trusts he won't wake up in his bed: Dead.
He thinks that 'man' is the luckiest being
But little does he know
That on age and experience he shouldn't gloat
Of the past rows that he had once sowed.
For young squirrels, too, jump agile and fierce
And their calendars always seem to be filled,
And like all other animals in this niggling race
They run bold-always finding new fields to be tilled.
The difference:
Their sleep seems sure, their lives complete-
Satisfied in their uncertain certitude-
Yet when they wake, as upon awakening they do,
They never seem surprised-
nor, unlike us, are they are ever, and apparently never, fooled.