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

Notes To A Man

Do you remember the first time

you realized the world was new,

when words had their places?

They didn’t always 

work the way you wanted them to.

When others used the same words,

you were disappointed,

but you learned

to use them to leap 

into clouds of the unknown.

And remember your first

truly passionate kiss?

The one that made your body vibrate,

closed your eyes,

sapped your strength,

weakened your knees.

Your body became a furnace,

your sanity became chaotic,

the crackling madness of love 

made a strange kind of sense.

When you saw the world

through the eager eyes of your children,

through their questions and wonder,

through their gestures of offering you water,

you realized everything has its purity,

old and new, coming and going,

a colorful world after all,

and that you were an ordinary man

blessed by an intangible mystery

that made you something more 

than you would have ever expected.

From: In Transition

Unpub. MS in progress.