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
