At last, he sees the pattern spun in gold:
The maritime, the nautical in how
It is the trip, the journey makes us old;
It is the search to find what's really now.
How many hours rowing, tacking wind?
How many flat seas scanned, how many ports?
The plans he scuppered, burned up, tossed, or binned
Are like so many other vain reports,
That he has authored, thinking them the truth.
But now, he's on a road, and wet brown earth
Are everywhere he looks; the sun's lost youth
Reminds him of how far he is from birth.
He may know where he is at, or of,
But he knows this: all truth is really love.
When he worked, he dreamed of rest;
Now he rests and dreams of work.
Nestled in his hideaway,
Giving rein to whim and quirk,
He can range o'er all the earth
Giving new thoughts second birth --
He can be all things, he can:
Except, maybe still
A man
What meant the world to me, means naught to children;
What moved me, beyond hope, leaves them but cold:
Those things I held to heart, now dust and shadows;
For time has passed, and I have gotten old.
My eyes, once keen, were filled with ardent wonder
For things indifferent to the young, because
What meant the world, is fading with the starlight,
For that is how
What-is
Becomes
What-was
After:
a dismissive day amid the young
random shouting at him out on the road
rolled eyes at him counting his change at the grocery store
people elbowing by him on the street
But before:
checking an answering machine that never has messages
a tv dinner heated up in an old convection oven
playing three hours of solitaire
flipping television channels at 3:00 am
What never dies is seen by none
As he, the aging aching one
Walks painfully to where she sleeps
To lay his rose
And silent
Weep
In spring, you feel the newness of it all.
Each feeling is a flower, fresh, unique;
Like love or loneliness, each one is pure,
And beauty of discovery hangs round
The edges of the garden path that leads
To who you want to be and where and how —
In spring, you feel the newness of it all.
Summer on the edge of madness
Broken in emergent song;
Love’s a shadow born of gladness.
Nights too short for days so long
Shades come down on pages turning,
Glances lead to bodies burning,
Tangled up in their intentions,
Loves and likes and cites and mentions —
Summer in the glowing garden,
Moments known of passing fire,
Ere the fall comes hearts to harden,
Towards the autumn of
Desire
In the cool of autumn, still
We stood and wondered how,
We’d found each other in
This savant maze
A capturing, a visioning,
A laughter, and a pause —
A hymn, but more of promise, than
Of praise
It came with resignation, and
It went without applause;
A family, a faction,
And a fight —
The autumn sun was fading, and
The days were growing dark,
And we were changing colors with
The night
With time, comes winter, with its chill,
And we must finally go inside for heat,
And memories of the spring,
When everything was fresh and new,
And summer,
When we felt how love could be,
When heat was running wild,
Autumn,
When we stood out in the cool,
The evening cool, and watched
The twilight gather with
Its purple whispers
Of a looming time;
A time we’ve only known
As parable
With age, comes winter, with its rime,
And frozen becomes attitude, and time,
There is a slower pace,
And giving up of contest, game, and race;
But character is fate,
And all we leave’s too early, or too late,
The winter has it’s way
There is only the challenge of each day
And dripping memories,
That melt like icicles from trees,
And spring starts for another heart somewhere:
Another heart and life
