Saturday, March 14, 2009

334.Bookends.


SUNDAY SCRIBBLINGS this week asks us to look both back and forward.

BOOKENDS.

The book-years were so full of 'stuff',
Never, never time enough,
Children, work, and some duress,
Always wanting to progress.
Those years seem rather dog-eared now,
Condensed versions anyhow.
Some are tattered, best unread,
Some live on inside my head.
Well-thumbed pages, part-torn covers,
Remembered friends, forgotten lovers....
All a sort of jumble, really
That I can't remember clearly.
*
But, oh the BOOKENDS! They're what counts!
Life, in glorious amounts.
On the left there is the child,
Laughing free and running wild.
A girl with all the world before her;
Expecting people to adore her.
Sure and certain life would be
A great and glorious fantasy.
And, on the right, the end result,
Which often makes my heart exult.
To near the end a child again
Almost as I was back then!
Free from all those careworn pages
That seemed to mark my 'middle-ages'!
Second-childhood? Here's a child
Still 'laughing free and running wild'!
Freed from rules and obligations,
Surrounded by my dear relations,
Yes, my friends, it seems to me
A 'Bookend' is the thing to be!

9 comments:

Polly said...

What a great poem! I love your blog. I am about to fall asleep on the keyboard now, but I will be back to read more. Yake care, Friend.

anthonynorth said...

That was wonderful.

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Tumblewords: said...

Fantastic! Yes, indeed. A bookend. Perfect.

susan said...

Very nice. Enjoyed the cycle of life. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

I love it! As I've told you before, poetry is not something I search out, but I do love this one.

I like the pace and the rhythm, and I love how you've taken us from the child that was to the child that is.

And how true that we can recapture the spirit of childhood as we leave behind the serious responsibilities of middle life!

Patois42 said...

Ah, let me just say that I want it to be so, that other bookend.

danni said...

a beautiful flow to a very creative piece- amazing how these "ages of man" can truly bring us back to childhood again, sometimes not kindly --- but i look forward to it none the less, and shall make it my business to wring every drop out of the benefits of being a book end!!!

Kat said...

What a profound analysis - end to end.

Lovely lines...

...Still 'laughing free and running wild'!
Freed from rules and obligations,

Anonymous said...

Brenda, no book-end are you. You are the book that one seeks from, yes? Wonderful poem :)