Young and Old

Photo: Karen Arnold, Creative Commons, some rights reserved

I started this poem Sunday, before snow fell upon the daffodils of today’s haiku. But even a foolish hope is better than none. I have this notion that wisdom is more for the brain, whereas the heart is given to folly. And that’s a good thing.

Young and Old

My father, when he was dying of cancer
(younger than I am now), confided to me:
“I’ve never felt older than 19 in my heart.”

It explains how I too never feel quite
grown up. And my uncles the same: men
in the chassis, boys beneath the hood.

It’s a good, thing I think, for the heart to be
a little foolish.  A soft breeze blows; daffodils
bloom. I cherish a foolish hope winter is over.

My own teen years were not my best –except
for taking up life with you. Were are hearts
not a little foolish, how could we have lasted?

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One Response to Young and Old

  1. Paul Davison says:

    Very Beautiful!! I will never forget seeing Richie Havens in concert. and at one point he is telling a story, and in it he says, “We always stay the same age (mentally/in our hearts), as the age we left home at.” For me, that is one of the truest things that I have ever heard.

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