By Stephen Johnson
Like Aspen leaves adrift on yellowed-cold,
we flutter, down from youth – to frailty.
Bone overlapping nerve, vision narrower,
niggling fire- in an un-stoked furnace.
A familiar name, muted in the downdraft,
gait- become a trudge deliberate.
We swirl, blown about upon Time’s whim,
conjugating in our similarities.
Wisdom, begotten by present sorrow,
consoles- as does hot tea in deep winter.
Retrospection, wrings itself out upon us,
our frayed rag, draped on clean plates.
In groups, proliferous and alarming,
we settle, onto the still and waiting soil.
knurled hands laced with peace accepted,
feet – content to have at last arrived,
hearts, at-pace with the scope of quietude,
we bequeath the bustle, to those we love.
Stephen Phillip Johnson is a Mountain Home carpenter. Writing is his itch. Within the halls of medicine, where he’s been (repeatedly) healed, reside flocks of muses.