Row by Row

 Row by Row

 

I am old now, I must finally admit

Pouring myself into a termite gnawed chair

In a garden I planted some decades ago

Each year I see my charges come and go

Some thrusting past expectations

Becoming trees or expositions of simple grandeur

Others vanishing as lost expeditions

Like the cells ticking away inside me

The lost hopes became mulch for saplings

As my stories change the youth in me

You grow weary of the great world

The sounds from beyond the Acacia trees

I just lowered an old friend into a shady place

And will let the birds sing my eulogy

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