Young man with your shining hair
and brightness in your smile.
Your eyes see a golden future
as long as the days are short.
When you open your heart to another
Do you pray to the jewel-hung sky?

Young woman swaying down a street
With your golden hair
Legs caper under a flowing skirt.
Your lips taste only sweetness
as new as the world is old.
When you give your body as you recline,
Do you spread your arms to the gods?

I see you narrow your gaze
at the old woman hobbling
reaching out for the dregs of life.
I hear the pity in your voice,
the sorrow for her and you think
you have a choice
to run from that image,
to say forever young.
You may even laugh at the old man
puffing out his chest
and imitating youth.
I know you're thinking
this will never happen to you.

So enjoy the brightness of your eyes,
the smooth skin and straight spine
that propels you through the spring
Let yourself believe that the leaves
will always be neon green
and the wind warm and soft.
Twirl down the lanes and
fly over mountains and seas!
For all of us did that once
and were as unwitting as you.
None of us, for all our fear,
ever really saw the gulf
of eighty or ninety years,
or certainly not the lack of breath
and the pain of each step,
each turn on a bed
that now feels hard as stone.

We gaze from windows
As you gambol past,
And know you fear to be alone,
Not seeing that at last,
We say good-bye to wind and sky,
that everyone sinks into the earth,
Leaving the power, in our last sigh,
We invoke another birth.