Page 97 of 122 ~Pine Cone Diary~

[1st. Draft Dec,2017 rev: Sept,2018 ] 

A weathered Sundial

 

When we are young,

We can tolerate physical pain,

 emotional blizzards and blinding rain.

      We seek recognition, fortune, and elusive fame.

We chase glittering stars on summer nights

and keep sentry for sunrise to celebrate dawn with life.

 

We even can cry without forcing a fight.

     We can talk, discuss, and compromise.

We recognize beauty in a surprise.

We are able to light a candle when the fire dies.

 

When we are young,

we can laugh at ourselves. We believe in pennies

flipped fluttering to the bottom of wishing wells.

We become Peter Pan and Wendy

ignoring pouting Tinkerbelle.

 

We watch directions flow through heart than through mind.

     We travel distances immeasurably fast;

roadways, highways, and paths. We float

above chipped concrete, soft tar, and beaches

with ankle-deep sand.

     Even paths that are crook and twisted

in shallow water or on solid land.

     We are each other’s map.

 

We frolic in spaces where time never exists;

     along with places, where sadness, is just a visit.

When we are young,

eventually those days, I suppose, age eclipses.

 

**********

When we are old,

we sit with aches and pain. Confused and misunderstanding, we complain.

     Our clothes begin to slip or do not fit.

Along with our acceptance of expected fortune

 and absence of fame.

     We wear sweaters and warm cotton hats on cool summer nights

watching the sunset fade into rising moonlight.

 

(Having bitten Eve’s apple, once forbidden

     We become stubborn —guilt ridden with indigestion

and slow in healing. We sleep uneasily on thin frayed

but forgiving linen. We forget ourselves in mixed memories,

forgetting our birthday in evaporating wishing wells).

 

 

The sound of muted Tocks

Tick off the clock, like muffled thunder

under the hoofs of approaching mercenaries;

Angels from heaven and perhaps one or two

from hell’s monastery.

 

We shed a small tear, becoming a prism, a glitter

     in the sliver of a waning moon. We let it fall with joy

on another evenings shadow,

cast upon a weathered sundial, praying for the ‘morrow;

     when we are old.

(It all subsides from youth to age.

From steel to rust, from rock to gravel.

From coal to diamond and back to dust.)