Lit Up | Poetry

RAMBLING

one man loved the pilgrim soul in you

Photo by Heather Wilde on Unsplash

An echo of the half-known
blowing in the wind
a time returned to me,
rambling, aimlessly
spouting a something from youth,
from the fields of barley,
from the wasting game
until the time came again
until the light froze again
and I looked down from a tree
a bitter-sweet symphony
as I might be, fifty years gone,
still free beneath this bridge of sighs
the water and I drift gloomily along —
nothing seeks to change my mind
cast forward, just learn to love
no matter what the fucking cost
but here there is little street traffic
and I have no money for the dope.
So, I took memory in hand,
shadows softly sinking,
into that day when
I will read the runes again.
Nothing lasts long, does it?
Nothing usually turns up
to change the course of a stream:
or a life:
fate, chance, digging death, an ill-look.
The beautiful part of life is brief.
But how clear the images remain
a girl in a party dress
kissing
the taste of sweet cyder,
what a delight it is to be young.