Youth

These pixes were taken the same afternoon in the neighborhood park. In my poem I tried to capture a bit of the sense of the different perspectives of youth and old age.

Youth

September is the month that chases
after the sun that leaves the harvest waiting
for the ruddy farmer to pick up the traces
of the plenty its heat and fiery graces strew
over the ground for the plucking and crating.

It's a dimmer month where a walk on the trails
finds the young runners running and blind to the sight
of the trees that are dusting their summer shelves;
the young are concerned with their green-leafing selves.

The crumpled are trampled and left to their plight
at the edge of the path where the berries are red
and the toadstools of autumn lean through the weeds
to tidy the world by recycling the dead,
who'd rather remain, but settle instead
to leave seeds.

I smile as they pass with their youth-scented breeze,
like an old ox adjusting its companionable yoke.
I've been admiring a great, ancient tree
they've missed while enjoying their sturdier knees,
for though they're the saplings - I've got the oak.