Indian Summer, Part Iii

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Happy Holidays and best wishes to all and anyone still reading my stuff.

Thanks for every comment.

Writing a epic is agonizingly slow work. This one's gonna take awhile.

The winds of Winter wait,
Whispering to me of the approaching future,
But still far off, biding their time
Until this span of light and warmth has lasted out its stay.

     Meantime, I engage myself in taking stock;
     Compiling the days that define myself to myself
     Enlarging the catalog so far as I can,
     Building up a narrative.

So many memories
Like fireflies in a Summer's night
Flash through the dark spaces of my mind.

Childhood: Flash
                            Youth: Flash
Young Parenthood: Flash
                                         Empty Nest: Flash.

Family, friends, events
Joys, sorrows, beginnings, endings -
All make their flickering passages;
All paint their images onto me  

     The particles dance and shift
     Cells die to be replaced
     The face in the mirror becomes my father's
     Molecule by molecule
     With each passing instant.

     The particles dance and shift
     Moving back towards the dark unknown
     From which they came,
     Yet somehow in the midst of it
     The I that was
                              And am
                                            And shall be
     Remains to watch the long parade unfold.

And that parade, banal and fantastic,
Marches past that inside window where I watch to see myself pass by,
As some newer self shall do the same through all tomorrows
Until the day when all the marching stops for me -

     And then, my fellow marchers,
     O my many, varied Loves,
     On that last Winter's day,
     Where will we be,
     Where will we be?

     What musics shall we hear?
     What wonders might we see?

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