David Smalling | + Follow Poet |
Verse | + Fav Poem | Comment | Email | Print |

For Young -A Survivor From Flankers -

We did not then believe our lives were written in the sun
And mapped no circle of the stars
Or even the moments brightness when the meteors run
We only saw the land filled with scars:
               Time and vanished youth like the fairy that took our tooth
               Whimpering we come, but out going is so resolute           
Little footpaths instead of decent roads,
Tracks that led to outcrop barren rocks
Children stumbling with bucket loads
Of water, barefooted, vulture in flocks
                 Time and vanished youth like the fairy that took our tooth
                 Whimpering we come, but out going is so resolute     
Always circling eyes' blue waste of sky
And little shrubs that sauntered to die
In the frenzied dust disturbed by wind
And upon your face that knowing grin
                 Time and vanished youth like the fairy that took our tooth
                 Whimpering we come, but out going is so resolute     
We saw but did not understand. You saw destiny clear
As Joseph's dream, without sermons
Of Providence that he had, and rose up from the drear
And barren place, carrying visions
                 Time and vanished youth like the fairy that took our tooth
                  Whimpering we come, but out going is so resolute     
Of self and inner strength to escape
The squalid pallor that gnawed our youth
Surrounded by the swamps of that landscape
This is the resilience in you that I salute
                  Time and vanished youth like the fairy that took our tooth
                   Whimpering we come, but out going is so resolute     
Yet sometimes I wished you'd return
To talk about it, to tell us how it's done
For many there still in stupor yearn
To escape the shriveling of the sun.

Copyright © David Smalling | Year Posted 2010

Please Login to post a comment