the longer your Earthly path
all the more are prayers offered for the dead.

Sometimes good sometimes bad
Often make one sad

Sometimes fresh sometimes faint
A picture they paint

We hide or flaunt
But the past is bound to haunt

Make new or retake few
But the mood goes blue

We quit but revisit
Somewhere in heart they sit

All memories
are ongoing stories

you, yes, you
I need you to feel
more alive
and that's the end
the beginning of
any metaphor

And somehow
In my sadder times
I let go
Of friends close to me
friendships like poetry

But I still think of them
And reflect in reminiscence
On happiness shared
sadness disclosed

And as friends do, they enriched my life
Taught me a thing or two
So precious
And will always be
Those friendships like poetry

I wish them well
Wherever they might be
As they say, though not seen,
Still they are, hidden somewhere, like stars

Once when I was younger
I was made older for my age

My playground was always only inches from the edges of the grave

Though I was not a victim of evil child abuse

The fact was I had no supervision . I was completely free and lose

I ran away at three looking for who or what can ever tell

If I found a hole in woods
I wanted to know how deep was the well

I was always one step from disaster
Riding a bike up a hill or down a mountain

Swimming across the river
or out in the ocean
My need to be searching
was how I was made to sustain

As the edges of aging expanded my thirst for adventured expired

Now I am surely as close to that edge that I embraced
so long ago

But now I know how deep that well is

How high the mountain
How wide the river
or the deep the ocean

Now that I know I guess it's time to go