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