These are poems about time, poems about the process of maturation, poems about aging and growing old, poems about life's journey and its destination...
Learning to Fly
by Michael R. Burch
We are learning to fly
every day . . .
......
A scowl...
With hands on face
We are marked,
Stalked… and prey
Ticking away in escape
It cannot be saved
Moments pass behind us
Now becomes then
......
Sweet recollections of youth,
tiny giants in immense world.
When days were lite and slow,
birthdays scarce and Christmas distant.
Knowledge... perspective
mortality, brutal realities
swelling with years
shrinking the world.
......
When you see me sitting quietly,
Like a sack left on the shelf,
Don’t think I need your chattering.
I’m listening to myself.
Hold! Stop! Don’t pity me!
Hold! Stop your sympathy!
Understanding if you got it,
Otherwise I’ll do without it!
When my bones are stiff and aching,
And my feet won’t climb the stair,
......
That old man in the chair
with the still, spotted hands
hunched over on his porch
and gazing into nowhere.
His youth has ran,
on the ground he lands.
No one seems to care,
and onto them, his dead eyes stare.
Sweet recollections of youth,
tiny giants in immense world.
When days were lite and slow,
birthdays scarce and Christmas distant.
Knowledge... perspective
mortality, brutal realities
swelling with years
shrinking the world.
......
A scowl...
With hands on face
We are marked,
Stalked… and prey
Ticking away in escape
It cannot be saved
Moments pass behind us
Now becomes then
......
Achy bones like brittle tree bark
Stretching skin ripping like paper
Numb tendons lagging behind
Emotions mixed like soup on a cold day
Confused in finding a footing
Changes etched in aging eyes
Renewed perspective aching with stretching numbness
Growing up means experiencing new Pains.
Is getting old just adding years
Or is it really more subtraction?
Every birthday is a celebration
Of advancing bravely life’s frontier.
But joining all the jubilation
Comes the sadder revelation
That age is not all it may appear.
For every act there is reaction.
What wisdom seniors may acquire
......
Fervent redbirds began to croon,
As onyx shadows danced in tune,
Idle afternoon of peacock plumes,
amid greenness and floral fumes.
Saffron sunshine forever resumes,
with memories of pale, pink moon.
Gardener's pride, flowers maroon,
seeking the usual golden fortune,
under skies of lost purple balloon,
and mystery clouds, leaving soon.
......