‘The world has left me behind,’ he said,
‘I live my life in the past,
None of the things that I came to love
Survived, they just couldn’t last.
The rails that I rode are overgrown,
The music I loved has gone,
The friends that I made are left in the shade,
Though most of them travelled on.’

The woman who’d answered his ad was sat
Beside him out on the porch,
She’d heard this tale a million times
So she never carried a torch.
She bent her head as she listened to him
And she smiled, her hair was grey,
The years of care were visible there
As her beauty faded away.

‘But wasn’t it all a wonderful ride,’
She sighed, as she thought of him,
The man who’d always been at her side
‘Til he died, his end was grim.
But that was a dozen years ago
And life carried on, though sad,
She wanted to meet a gentle soul
Which was why she’d answered the ad.

‘Why would you want to live in the past
When the past is done and gone,
I tip my hat to the past,’ she said,
‘But the future lures me on.
There’s conversation and love to share
As long as there’s life and breath,
The future’s only a day away,
The end of it all is death.’

He sat up straight and he stared at her
Transfixed by her gentle voice,
The things that stirred in his hardened heart
He’d buried them there by choice.
Behind her eyes was an inner glow
That he hadn’t noticed before,
‘Could you really bring me to life again?’
He said, and his voice was raw.

‘We can take it just one step at a time,’
She said, ‘as we did when young,
The world was such a marvellous place
To explore, like a song unsung,
We’ll bless the sun coming up each day,
To spread its light through our land…’
Then watched the roll of a single tear
As she reached on out for his hand.

David Lewis Paget