Days Gone By

Days Gone By
Snow provokes responses that reach right back to childhood.
~Andy Goldsworthy

Sucking on candy, so rich and so sweet,
memories surface and my thoughts turn deep.
My old body aches with pain that won’t mend.
With arctic cold lips and hair snowy white,
Old Man Winter lulls the world to sleep.
Me, I recall youth and a better time.

Snowflakes fall, their gentle tracks keeping time.
The laughter of children, tinkling sweet,
awakens the spirit once gone to sleep.
On the windowpane piles snow so deep.
Cold, crystalline fingers of icy white,
my mother’s hot cocoa always did mend.

I know with my age, I must make amends.
Winter reminds me I run short on time.
But I long to play in the drifts of white,
and savor the freedom of youth so sweet,
to lay down on top of the piles deep,
and make angels with wings spread as they sleep.

The passion for life not yet quite asleep,
I pick up the coat my fingers can’t mend.
Venturing outside brings a joy most deep
and propels me into another time.
With my tongue I catch snowflakes that taste sweet,
and run through the field covered in white.

A magical world of glistening white,
the gold tones of autumn long gone to sleep,
greets my abandon, with love bittersweet.
Frigid wind strikes me with blows that won’t mend.
I search the sky for a hint of the time,
sprawled on a blanket that’s snowy and deep.

I pull from the reverie grown too deep,
and wipe a tear beneath hair turned white.
Imagination doesn’t fade with time.
Memories live while the body does sleep.
They touch us with love and grace that will mend,
like a mother’s kiss, so gentle and sweet.

No longer fighting, I fall to deep sleep,
knowing eternal white slumber will mend
all that time has stolen: a youth once sweet.


Written for:  "Quotation Inspiration: Official Contest" 

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