Sitting on the banks of the river,
a branch flows slowly by
carried by the river to a place downstream,
a place he cannot see.....
not today, at any rate, not today.
A leaf sails past, spinning and
dancing with the wind in the sun
flying to a finish far away,
in a race with memories and time.
The graying man sits on the banks of the river,
a pen in his hand, and records the age,
and the soon to be long ago’s of his life,
and all the while watching the water pass
and listening to his stories told in whispers
to a sky that never cared, and writes it anyway,
only to place the pages in the drawer,
and hide them 'til the furthest tomorrow.
The sunshine starts to slip away,
and shadows come to play in the trees
and the smallest branch looms larger,
more important in the dusk than it ever was
when the daylight shone upon it.
And still, with failing eyes and other ills,
the words flow free,
following the river along its banks,
to a place it has to end,
a part of a larger self
a line of pasts reaching out to a present and a time
and touching someone’s son......
too far away to know whose tales he reads,
from a dusty book he found in a pile for sale,
.....it only cost a quarter.
And that was the value of the stories told,
to the river as it flowed
along the banks it traveled, long ago.