My Poem ‘Growing Younger’

Sometimes you think you know the beginning of something
before you know the end;
sometimes you think you know with every certainty
what you are going to do with your life.
When you are a child it is so simple to imagine,
to anticipate, and see the good things that you want to happen to you,
and to you they are not just thoughts that you write in a diary
or a journal, and they are not just the dreams that you share
with your best friend.
When you are a child every first step that you take is an adventure,
and you just do what you feel in the moment,
and you say what you think in an instant,
and everything is possible,
because you haven’t yet been told that the most important thing
to do in everything you do is to try.
There are no disappointments,
at least there shouldn’t be as long as you remember,
even though you are a child, that as long as you still have yourself,
your mind, and your heart, and something to believe in,
and someone to believe in you;
and as you grow older, if you stay true to what feels right
and what your first instincts tell you,
you will one day look back with a smile,
and wonder how unbelievable it is that the moments of your life,
like the years, have gone by so fast-
so much so they feel like they have flew.

I am always fascinated by what the first thought is
that someone remembers of their lives.
My first clear and recognizable memory
is of my first day of primary school,
and being late that morning for some reason.
I am always in awe by what a child says,
no matter what it is, because they never have no end of things
to say about everything, and because they are surprisingly
articulate, knowledgeable, open, and right.
My first day at school was when I first said ‘I’m sorry’
and I gave my first gift to my teacher for being late-
it was only a box of chocolates,
but I do remember her telling me that is was alright,
and her saying thank you to me and to my Mom-
it’s so strange, because even though that happened so long ago
it feels like yesterday,
and at that moment, and at that time,
my mind, body, and senses, raced and lived truly and wholly
in the moment, and I didn’t fixate or even realize
there was such a thing as a horizon.

As we get older, we unfortunately do forget.
In this day and age our lives seem to revolve around numbers
that we feel compelled to constantly remember,
so we can do what we have to do,
and so we can get what we want to get.

The world has changed so much since I was a boy.
I have seen technology, opinions, countries,
cities, sky-lines, people, language,
and what children and adults are constantly being told
what they need in their lives and what they should think-
whether it is an expectation, or an image,
because it is what everyone else has in the form of a
new disposable and unimportant,
but seemingly vital new toy.
But the world is change. Change is the nature of life,
and the life-blood of the entire universe.
When things change everyone know that they must adapt to survive,
and to me that is why change is a gift to be cherished
and relished, not a problem or a curse.

The more we live and the more we experience,
the more our lives blossom in ways that know
and don’t have to imagine when we are a child,
because we feel it in ourselves-
just as we know and feel the change within us,
and sometimes that can make us want to break free
and run wild, unrestricted and unconfined,
and because we are still discovering who we are
and who everyone and what everything is,
nothing is out of reach or not aloud.

What I rediscover and realize more and more day by day
is that I don’t see myself the way I sometimes feel
I am supposed to see myself,
because I see how others my age look at me
and look at themselves,
and because most people these days are so used to
being told what they should think, feel, like, dislike, say, and do;
I suppose I am the opposite of that and I recognize
that same freedom of expression and identity in so many others that I see-
people who just want to be a person and not a number,
even if that number is their age.
I find that if you live free and embrace every hopeful moment
it shows in every part of you,
and to everyone around you it really tells.

As birthdays come and go;
as the days begin earlier, but feel shorter;
as I realize that life is more about who you know
sometimes more so that it is about what you know;
as I realize, what I used to not ever think about
and simply act upon when I was child,
that the feeling of the moment is more important
than worrying about what hasn’t happened yet,
and may never happen.
I realize that even though in counting the years
that I have been alive, breathing, thinking,
and feeling on this planet,
I may appear or seem to be getting older,
I am in fact in spirit doing the opposite of that-
because I truly feel that I am growing younger.

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My Poem ‘Wildflower’

Standing, growing, and swaying in the breeze,
alone but seemingly content in a beautiful green oasis
at the centre of a big city-
a wildflower, a violet and white, beautiful and amazing
perfect product of nature has me transfixed and completely at-ease.

Others walk on by and do not appear to take notice;
I, however, cannot look away if I tried-
I take in a breath, I look again at the beautiful flower before me,
I close my eyes, and I make a make a silent wish.

When I open my eyes again I see a noticeable flash of light
that overwhelms my vision for a few seconds,
and intensifies the colour of everything around me-
when I now look at the incredible wildflower,
and the green grass around it,
every petal, every blade of grass, appeared to be glowing
and vibrating, and the path beneath me looked as if it
and the grass were the same and connected
like the overlapping waves of a tumultuous sea;
but the flower, it was something else,
it looked like something else,
it felt like something else-
it radiated and glowed like a fire,
like it was actually burning and sending out
noticeable distortions around it like a stone being dropped
over and over into a pond,
or like the sparks that flash at the end of a live wire.

I felt like I wanted to reach out and touch it,
to see if it was real, or imaginary, for some reason-
the air had gone cold, the leaves would soon be turning brown
and falling from the trees,
but this flower felt like as if it were not bound
by such metamorphosis in appearance,
nor in the change of the season.

The wildflower just was,
and as each second that I stared at it passed,
it made me think and feel like the way seeing and hearing
the launch, the flash, and the bang of a firework does-
and I must admit to giving out a gasp
when I was struck by an insight and a vision
that felt like a bomb-blast.

When my sight returned to normal;
when the colour around me faded as the world seemed to reset itself
to the way it looked before I arrived and sat down here
where I was, which could have been closer to a week for all I knew,
rather than a day, or even an hour;
when I stood up, and stared down,
I could still see the after-glow of what I had seen,
I could still feel its pull.
When I walked away, in the corner of my eye,
I looked and I saw something that I hadn’t seen before:
growing behind, and in-line with the one I had seen,
and been amazed so much by, I was literally in shock
at the sight of a second unseen wildflower-
why I had not seen it until now I did not know,
but what it meant to me, and the message it was relaying to me,
could not have been more clearer.