I took a journey as a 7-year-old boy I once was, catching pollywogs with my bare hand’s and putting them back into a stream so cold, a gift of life that made me whole. I’m now a 75-year-old man with hands whose veins are blue with age how can I turn back the page recapture that youth and loose the rage that is now a cold stream that runs through my soul.
A simple poem to write yet it took decades of life for me to share. Youth is the tree of life that your branches grow on, some with sweet smelling flowers that others adore, and again that branch that rots, and sheds its leafs like tears on a damp forest floor.
Life is a soft wind that spreads the smell of a campfire that you have shared with friends, and family on a hot summer night, and youth is slipping away as a weekend must end, and the daily grind of work turns your hair grey.
Politicians are like marble’s bouncing around in my head, I hear racist lies wishing others to be dead, and hatred spreads like a wild fire, as I see children and parents holding their dead. This hatred stirs such anger in my soul why can’t the power of love make people feel whole?
As I drink my morning cup of coffee, and look into the bathroom mirror youth has completely disappeared, and who is that old man starring back at me, he has a smile on his face, and tells me drink up your coffee today you are free.
Wow, powerful! Thank you for sharing.
I too look in the mirror and wonder who that old man is, where is the little boy inside me who had to work so much he seldom had time to play?