another one left today
a friend only known on an album cover
and by some scratchy music behind his words
and I, here with my hoary beard, grizzled
unkempt, skin dangling off once strong arms
arms that carried my love across a threshold
that lifted toward ancient stars two of my children at a time
and onto a lap that could still be seen three or four
here I remember four decades past
those who left then
was theirs the greater loss or gain
and for who, the ones who were close and cried
time is such a trickster
as children we laughed at her
oh how slow we said she was
she shall never catch up to us
we are so slim and fast and wise
even our lack of coordination, our misfit suits
could not keep us back to be overtaken
ah, but she is tricky, and patient
days and years and wear have done their job
in our heads still we see
the bright morning star rising
the long nights of stars streaking across the purple sky
where shadows never move and young excitement grows
we still see the fresh skin of those fairy tales
each new page read of enlightenment
prose, and poetry, and lyric
new languages and psychedelics
but patient time she moves and always works
til now as another passes away
my breath fails to keep pace with her
she is brutal in her speed
dizzying this old man and confusing the thoughts
all the well, lest my eyes clear and I see
the haggard look of the ones of mine
now bent and staggering, oh still the same
as always just waiting
waiting to see the next epitaph
the orbital obituary that time, ahead now wrote
fly free til then as I am slipping off the pace
and must rest soon, as those others
we will see posted, all the good ones
lost in such a year as this
and people will say that he was taken too soon
Source