Becoming Old Folks (Part II)

Epilogue, Part II

ca. 1970-present

We were in love and out, unrequited or used, sometimes 

choosing expediency over what was true and beautiful.

There is a vague nostalgia for our lost innocence, 

a disappointment that will never be reconciled.

Now in our seventies, with successes and failures,

a mix of hope and cynicism, whiskey and wine,

in and out of spiritual realms and practices, settling 

on something comforting as part of our end game.

Children are grown and gone and loved ones have passed.

I am astonished at having made it this far.

But, like wine, the stories we tell of the 

times and places will always improve with age.

From: A Meandering Search for

Innocence, Time, and Love

Unpub. MS p. 48

Sideways Through Our Eyes

Notes sent to 1967

So long ago, it seems as things go their way 

and back again to now, as always there was.

Appearances, prolific and weak, and fraudulent as are 

so many who adorned themselves as fancy, still shallow.

Even yesterday, as long a past as there is, 

not so different now than ten days or ten eons ago.

Our time past, the most egregious betrayals, 

forgiven, yet many have failed atonement. 

Such were the lessons of that time and place, of desire,

of regret, of knowing everything which meant nothing.

Seeing the mean face of reality, innocence was lost; 

to find our consciousness may take a lifetime.

Not the same faces as we today are as yesterday 

or tomorrow will be. Beware the hardening heart.

Time devours all. Redemption is how we will see.

To the center of a Labyrinth, there are no straight paths.

From: A Rambly Search for Innocence, Time, and Love

Unpub. MS p. 11