The Retireds

Birds black against the sky
provide a reason
to laugh,
perhaps to cry. 
It’s now the season
for age to have its say,
a kind of treason
to sit
regardless by. 

And some may say
we have to say too much
just to be heard
and hearing is deceptive.
What we hear
is often what we want
or, out of fear,
reject as argument. 

Age takes its time
and time’s both wide and empty
like the mind
when waking fresh
from sleep
or like the sky
where birds like memories flee:
now here, are gone.

By any sort of measure
we tarry long
like old
but errant children,
are remiss
in what we can’t remember,
fracture sleep,
sit up in bed too early,
early rise
to start another day
before night’s done.

It’s nothing to correct.
There's no harm done.
And what would you expect?
Yet, there are some
who suck love out of comfort,
much as time
sucks dry without exception,
leaving rinds.

Still the sky
remains the empty slate
where trees scratch sketchy statements,
telling less
than found in rings and segments.   
And, yes,
birds are much quicker.

Each flight unzips a zipper
that if not flown
and, thus,
gone unobserved,
would not be known
to be a path to somewhere,
yours or mine.

It’s true.
We climb blind-folded,
minus maps to see where we are going;
find, at last,
when knowledge is made round,
the trail we thought toiled up,
we have slid down.