Wednesday 29 June 2016

The aging poet

Birthdays, O birthdays
Were it not but for you 
I would feel young again

Foolish child I was 
Looking forward each year
To this most hateful day

Did you not see change
What is a numbers use
As each fresh year condemns

Take me back please do
Return me to springtime
Where fresh is the morning

Then the future was bright
Mountains were there to climb
Stars were to wish upon

There’s no spring in my step
Can I catch that girl’s eye
Or run after the bus?

Birthdays, O birthdays
Yet were it not for them
I could not write these words

Image found at www.wisegeek.com

14 comments:

  1. It feels like your poem and wish for more time is an anthesis to what i churned out rather gloomily today - time is the enemy perhaps - in a number of different ways...

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  2. Always find freshness and positive vibes in your poems... even when they are fretting about birthdays!

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  3. There is always that little "yet" in the end, the one that makes us not truly wish for a return to youth. I am grateful for your poems. Mighty fine picture!

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  4. i love the joy of words / experiences / gems gathered under the heaps of birthdays...beautifully penned...

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  5. There is much wisdom in this, esp how the poem wraps up.

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  6. I really loved this Old Egg! This is exactly how I felt on my birthday in May! So stupid to always want to get older only to finally get there and find it was all a trap!

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  7. I love the mountains to climb and stars to wish upon - the magic of looking back. Love, too, the awareness that we are still here, able to write, which is a very good thing.

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  8. We all know the alternative to birthdays, don't we?

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  9. Great lines.Frankly I think we all need to be like my MIL she decided this year instead of being 81 she'd turn around and be 18 because that's the year she liked the best.but Happy Birthday

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  10. Ah, we cannot help sometimes wishing that on our birthdays the clock would go backwards rather than forwards & that spring in our step would return.... If only....

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  11. You have given birthdays enough space to stand still reflect and move onwards. I live this in your poem

    Thanks for dropping byy blog today

    Much love...

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  12. "Did you not see change
    What is a numbers use
    As each fresh year condemns"-- Great lines! Once you cross a particular age (could be any number/age) u realise a hundred things, have thousands of thoughts simmering each day. You loose the lustre of birthday celebration. Love poem, Robin.

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  13. Yes too bad we cannot turn back the hands on the clock if only one day a year.

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  14. Birthdays, O birthdays
    Were it not but for you
    I would feel young again

    Chuckles! The opening stanza already indicative of the humor unfolding. A clever way of looking at birthdays. Wonderful humor, Robin!

    Hank

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