Regret

In today's address, I introduce the topic of Regret - ranging from the many "gentle" regrets - fleeting, "bitter-sweet" regrets in the songs we sing today - such as the momentary sense of loss at a passing joy, or triumph. And with reference to William Shakespeare's Sonnet 120, I also mention those lingering, festering regrets - interpersonal failures that will endure until we resolve them.
As Anzac Day approaches, I also mention my enduring regret at the failure of nations to address the issues that give rise to global conflict and modern warfare, and the prospect of global conflict and MAD (Mutually assured Destruction) as an insult to a fragile planet and where there can by no winners! I ask: "Perhaps it's why we've never been visited by aliens?"
I conclude with two contrasting poems. One, of regret at a boy - almost a man, enthralled with the prospect of using weapons to kill; another, a poem of hope in a young child who senses that "the rose needs the thorn", who will "run into rain-swept days" the same way "they turn towards the sun", who will draw on that "wilder bond" with Nature to "speak for those who have no voice". Listen on!