A Tale of The Weathered Sundial’s Ever-Moving shadow

Years have passed:

 

when we were young, we could tolerate physical pain,

emotional blizzards, and blinding rain.

We sought recognition, fortune, and sometimes illusions fame.

 

We chased stars in glittering summer nights keeping sentry for sunrise,

celebrating each dawn with a brand new name.

We could even cry, winning or losing, without forcing a fight.

 

We could talk, discuss, and compromise.

We recognize the beauty in unsuspected surprise.

We were always able to light a candle in the wind

 Finding our way back home on sad dark nights.

We often laughed at ourselves. Believing that pennies

we flipped, fluttering to the bottom of wishing wells

 

We’d became Peter Pan and Wendy

never growing old. And, totally ignoring Tinkerbell,

we watch our directions flow.

 

Following our hearts and the work of our hands

we traveled roadways, highways, and paths;

where distance seemed far and time immeasurably fast.

 

We floated above concrete, soft tar, and beaches with ankle deep sand.

Even paths that were crooked and twisted in shallow water or on solid land.

We were always on each other’s map!

 

We frolicked in spaces that love only knows

where time, never existed;

along with places, where sadness, was only a short visit.

 

Eventually, I suppose, age and Peter Pan eclipses

those days, when we are young.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There is only time now:

 

when we are old. We sit with aches and pain.

Confused, misunderstanding,

we complain.

 

Our clothes begin to slip or are frayed or they just don’t fit;

along with our recognition, fortune, and the reality of expected fame.

We wear sweaters and warm cotton hats on cool summer nights,

 

seeing only darkness as a distant fading light.

We Sleep uneasily on worn, thin but forgiving linen.

We, sometimes, forget ourselves with mixed memories,

stuttering on birthdays, which have evaporated in wishing wells.

 

We try to avoid being stubborn—  guilt ridden for actions mistaken,

poor mathematical intelligence, slips of jealously, pride,

and recognize that we, as we knew, is we that is forgotten.

 

From steel to rust, from rock to gravel,

from coal to diamond

and back to dust.

 

The sound of muted bells tick off the clock, like muffled thunder

under the hoofs of deaths’ mercenaries; some from heaven,

and maybe one or two from hell.

 

We may shed a warm small tear, becoming a prism, to glitter

In the sliver of a waning moon; signaling with joy—

tomorrow’s brand new day,

 

with its bright sun chasing

A weathered Sundial’s ever-moving shadow

 

~The Night Before Breakfast~ Vol. I                                        Another Draft Revision

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