Thirty-Six Cents
Thank you to all those who wished me well this weekend.
I spent the entire weekend with my son enjoying those things that make us
similar and enjoying the ones that sometimes strikingly remind me of the differences.
Without a doubt, this birthday and its place within my life at this particular moment has had me on a reflective streak. I make no apologies for the poem I'm included below. The others, the poems I wrote when I was 15.. those I apologized for a long time ago.
Thirty Six Cents, a poem.
Some years go by like the many grains of sand,
pouring silently, unnoticed, countless
into my out stretched hand.
Others have been crushed under my feet like
so many dried and wind blow leaves
strewn across my path, unobserved except for their
sometimes haunting and echoing crunch.
A few caught on the wet Autumn grass left to rot,
some caught on the wind and lifted into the smoke filled night sky.
Others are like long and slow expanding ripples,
expanding outward from central yet unseen event just out of my periphery,
in the center of some once quiet and still lake.
I watch them and measure their pace, slow but steady,
to the somehow less distant shore.
Sometimes the years of my youth seems to have been like so many coins,
collected and somehow never spent; cherished and pocketed,
each ones face and mint marks long studied
their exact denominations and grand total, thirty-six cents;
committed to memory, their ridged edges smoothed with wear and age.
Once kept as youthful treasure only to be rediscovered;
their priceless quality realized, their long forgotten faces now remembered.
And this year, like few others before it,
few kept in quiet solitude,
partly in reflection, some in restless growth.
Time spent listening to the wind and watching
each bit of sand fall through my fingers.
Watching where I stepped and on which path I strode on,
not letting the smoke obscure my way.
Measuring the ripples on the water
-- appreciating their beautiful and orchestrated symmetry.
Counting my treasures and spending them like my days,
with generosity and gratitude.
Remembering the old faces, the mint marks, the places
and the dreams of my youth I have held fast to.
I spent the entire weekend with my son enjoying those things that make us
similar and enjoying the ones that sometimes strikingly remind me of the differences.
Without a doubt, this birthday and its place within my life at this particular moment has had me on a reflective streak. I make no apologies for the poem I'm included below. The others, the poems I wrote when I was 15.. those I apologized for a long time ago.
Thirty Six Cents, a poem.
Some years go by like the many grains of sand,
pouring silently, unnoticed, countless
into my out stretched hand.
Others have been crushed under my feet like
so many dried and wind blow leaves
strewn across my path, unobserved except for their
sometimes haunting and echoing crunch.
A few caught on the wet Autumn grass left to rot,
some caught on the wind and lifted into the smoke filled night sky.
Others are like long and slow expanding ripples,
expanding outward from central yet unseen event just out of my periphery,
in the center of some once quiet and still lake.
I watch them and measure their pace, slow but steady,
to the somehow less distant shore.
Sometimes the years of my youth seems to have been like so many coins,
collected and somehow never spent; cherished and pocketed,
each ones face and mint marks long studied
their exact denominations and grand total, thirty-six cents;
committed to memory, their ridged edges smoothed with wear and age.
Once kept as youthful treasure only to be rediscovered;
their priceless quality realized, their long forgotten faces now remembered.
And this year, like few others before it,
few kept in quiet solitude,
partly in reflection, some in restless growth.
Time spent listening to the wind and watching
each bit of sand fall through my fingers.
Watching where I stepped and on which path I strode on,
not letting the smoke obscure my way.
Measuring the ripples on the water
-- appreciating their beautiful and orchestrated symmetry.
Counting my treasures and spending them like my days,
with generosity and gratitude.
Remembering the old faces, the mint marks, the places
and the dreams of my youth I have held fast to.
posted by John Knight at
11:30 PM
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