Surface Thoughts

Was there ever a time in history

When life was lived with simplicity?

Was there every a time

When no life contained misery?

We start our stories in such a place

A simple town

Where no one wears a frown

We start them there, in simple grace

That far away unattainable place

Was there ever a time in history

When I could be happy being me?

A time before the roar of bars

The thump of music

The allure of bars

Was there ever a time in history

When young abandon was truly free?

To run and skip and laugh and sing

Until the wild greenwood did loudly ring

I see the boy on my tv screen

Through him again I live

The years I’ve long since seen

Through to their end

I smell the sun and taste the rain

Of days and years gone by

I remember many a weary sigh

As I recall those days gone by

The light hope and sting of pain

Joyful laughter, darkest shame

I see the man on the tv screen

From his experience I try to glean

Semblance of the golden way

I learn about the world I see

I learn about what life can be

Through verse and prose I see the world

Every day a story I tell myself

I look back through the things I loved

I look back and what is beloved

Of me in how I live

The lessons learned

The paths not traveled

Together I see them both

Man and boy

Under lights

Suffuse with joy

I remember the taste of rain

The scent of sweat

The shock of pain

I remember what I lived

I remember nights

Arm in arm

And I remember sights suffused with charm

First day of school

For sixteen years

Last day of school

Another working day

I remember what it was to play

Can’t imagine myself doing it today

Then again

Through the magic of the pen

I imagine it every day

Another’s stories or my own

Fiction is my well-worn home

Was there ever a time in history

When I could be happy being me?

So many times there have been

So many mes have I seen

Not the boy I was

Nor the man I am

Nor the one I’ll someday be

No one of them was ever me

All at once

And none all the same

Can ever hope to tame

The Fangorne’s growth that is my name

Growing every single day

Blooming and shining

Until my dying day

I sing a sad song for who I used to be

The boy now grown into me

And a happy one for the man I’ll be

When at last he is me

Was there ever a time in history

When life was simple as could be?

Never a time without mockery

Never one with no belligerency

Never was there no melancholy

But there is a time when I can say

Every time I have a new today

That I’m finally ready to be me