Walking through this springtime land

Full of dark woods and fields

Where daisies grow and lilies stand

By running brooks that laugh and reel

 

But all the while pours the sand

Though often see it one does not

For it does not rest in one’s hand

It slips away, steady, despite distraught

 

Sometimes when the clouds blow away

And fogs lift, and dawn paths run flat and far

One sees suddenly the past day

And learns just how old the pears are

 

It is moments such as these

That one sees the road in the shade

And encounters the nettles and bees

Or may reflect on memories made

 

It is moments such as these

The distance travelled is realized

And it’s found one’s self’s no child at ease

But that one has now grown, up-sized

 

Comparable moments are, to state

Driving for the first time, straight and bends

Tending siblings or parents ‘til hurts abate

Or saying goodbye to one’s best, oldest friends

 

This is when morning becomes the day

When trees shrug their flowery cape away

 

It is the breaks that make you know

That the path is not the same

No longer the safe, carefree route

But one filled with nature’s untame

 

It makes one wiser to be joined

With fellow sojourners on the way

One must have the skills thus coined

For one’s trips can take friends down to the clay

 

Such is the journey, so very long

Most of it’s joy, but is mixed with sadness

All the while the sand pours on and on

Though in the mind the moment is timeless