Too Soon Gone

 

Too soon gone, before we can realize their worth,

are the glory days of our lives upon this old earth.

Despite the willing spirit, still so eager to seek,

our treacherous flesh betrays us, grows weak

as eyes dim and knees creak under the steady

accumulation of years and unrealized dreams;

limitless tomorrow was only yesterday, it seems.

 

Now we are full of old slogans and wise quotes,

trivia, and random lessons memorized by rote.

Young folks, avid to learn, look to us with hope,

expectant, open to the knowledge we possess;

eager to discover how we were able to cope.

 

We struggle to remember the shining phrases

we rehearsed back in days of confident youth

as we looked forward to life’s coming praises.

 

As usual, some of us succeeded brilliantly while

most of us reached a comfortable level and rested,

others never made it out of the valleys – beaten

back, worn down, defeated, and ultimately bested

by a life turned mundane and, they sighed wearily,

too soon gone.

 

But , what is the measure of success? Are teachers

who mold and influence hundreds of young minds

yet never stray far from the classroom of little note?

All the great things we plan to do…the heroic scope

of future deeds, transcendent and pure, begin as

seeds planted and nourished by them.

 

Their visions shine out from our eyes; our voices

sing music they taught us to compose; we inscribe

their poetry and prose, even as they mourn time

too soon gone.

 

A man daydreams over the whimsical stories Gramps

would spin to entertain them both. Memory kindles

imagination which, in turn, blooms, and ramps up

until an old lazy day tale becomes an enthralling epic.

Time was not too soon gone at all, but a maturation,

a bridge extended lovingly between the generations.

 

A tale idly formed from old slogans and wise quotes,

trivia and some random lessons memorized by rote,

is absorbed by a receptive young mind and eventually

transformed into a monumental saga for the ages.

 

A legend, culled from times that never went away,

a heroic adventure that eventually spread to titillate

the imaginations of millions, it began on a drowsy

afternoon in the mind of a kindly old man amusing

his grandson. An elderly gentleman who erroneously

thought, as the day droned on, his time would be

too soon gone.

 

© 6/15/2009 T.P. Woodfork   imaginative

 

 

 

      T.P. Woodfork

  www.8thwood.com

“You can’t pray a lie.”

--Huckleberry Finn