The words they come from
somewhere in my mind
like a beautiful breeze blowing
wind in your face or like a smile
that only takes a moment
and costs nothing but gives much,
like a memory that lasts forever.

Don't take your eyes off love's
swift feet even for a second,
because if you do you'll find
yourself in a field of lonesomeness
and know that it is in loving that the heart
finds its quest and it is in giving, not getting,
that our lives are best.

I've climbed to the top
of the mountain and touched
the dew on the morning rose
and witnessed the beauty of nature
and bathed in that beauty and as
my memory runs over those yesterdays
knowing that the only way
I can ever go back,
is the way I just did,
back into the fast-fading
thoughts of an old mind.

When I was young I was
full of fun, learning of life,
living each hour fast and free,
almost as if each were my last
and later, still young but a veteran
of an ugly war that changed me forever,
I knew just enough about life
to regard it more valuable
than before.

Involved in many of life's mysteries
of serving causes or friends,
both of which become
more dangerous with time,
made some of my actions
feel like a crime,
somewhere in my mind.

But I continue and I am still alive
knowing that love is so much more
than an empty desire and beauty
is also so much more than
the new that fades away
so fast.                                                  Jon York             2013