Tag Archives: generations

LOOK TO THE YOUNG

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Pexels.com

To see the future look to the young people.

They are not yet bound by convention,

nor blinded by the past,

as we old people are,

weighed down and eyes downcast

because we must watch the path

we no longer walk easily.

Such history serves a  purpose.

It offers cautionary tales

learned from days gone by.

But, it predicts nothing,

moves too slowly to catch up

with the speed of a future

unfolding before our eyes.

We can hardly understand

what we see in broken spans

as we catch pieces of the changes

meant to help us survive.

Look to the young people

racing on by, sharing nods of heads

while busily taking it all in stride,

smiling all the while,

letting us hold fast to our past

knowing we think them fools;

but they know they are simply cool.

And they are so, so, so  cool.

They carry our hopes with their own,

and the hopes of ages past grown old

into a world we cannot conceive.

They never break a sweat; 

learning more than we can forget.

I want to live long enough to see

this new world they create, strong and free.

I lift my eyes up to them respectfully,

gladly, lovingly and hopefully.

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OLD PATHS

The path beneath my feet

Is one unknown to me.

If I have traversed this way before

It has been lost to memory.

Perhaps, it seems, to be

one once described to me

by lineage and ancestry.

Sicily was often overrun

by strangers to her shore,

Creating new paths to run

new tales of history

of those who had gone before.

Does age create such doubts?

Does age turn straight paths

Into meandering round-abouts

where youthful traffic refuses

to take the time to stop?

Does age create the unmarked trails,

or does youth misdirect those who fail

to take the time to study new maps?

Choosing instead to take a nap.

Forget the nap.

Forget the map.

Become the child again whose life thrives

on striking out for parts unknown

on paths that are not yet overgrown

with comforts and plots we had sown

before we grew too old to recall

what it feels like to stand brave and tall.

Take the unknown path after all.

Live again a life in thrall.

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