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Saturday, May 15, 2010

The Young Man at Three Score and Five

Time has ambushed me again. It's the heart of spring and rebirth. The birds are singing their angry territorial songs, the flowers are blooming for the insects, and leaves are clean stained glass green. Everything smells alive and organic. If you breathe in deep enough you can taste it, taste life on the back of your tongue. As it happens every spring on this day I am caught slightly off guard by the marking of my own time. Another year has quietly slipped out the back door during the night. I awoke this morning my hair a little grayer and thinner, my muscles softer, my joints aching with the arthritis of a lifetime of petty crimes to my body. My vision continues it's march toward inevitable darkness. None of this is noticeable day to day, but over the years it's cumulative. And the pace seems to be accelerating at an unnerving rate. In short, life can be a long pull into a Midwest summer wind, the hill that never ends. And I love every turn of the crank. I think I'm going to sign up for another season. I had better pick up the pace though; my goal was to finish in the money with moral clarity and wisdom, and I'm not maintaining the necessary pace.


Through evergreen fields of my youth I'd go singing
My steps left no footprints behind
No fruit of the harvest lent weight to my pockets
Small knowledge was stored in my mind
Now youth has forsaken this old man
My seasons are numbered by three
No seeds have been sown in the plowed fields
No harvest is waiting for me

The crippleful life is the fate of a loner
No fruit will be borne by his tree
These thoughts pierce my mind while in echoes of memory
A small voice too late calls to me
Come run through my green fields you old man
Search beyond your windowsill
Go touch my high moutains and valleys
Come sleep 'neath my evergreen fields

4 comments:

reverend dick said...

Dang. That was well written.

Anonymous said...

You know, Berg, I was reading the recent article about the 1952 golf team that appeared in the Tribune and all I could think of was why did time have to go so fast. I'll see you at the finish line. Dex

Gunnar Berg said...

Dex,
Your place or mine?

Anonymous said...

You have better beer. Dex