journey

Thank you to the e-zine Aberration Labyrinth for including my poem journey in Issue #012.  Also thanks to my teacher, friend, and mentor Jim Reynolds, for your invaluable editorial suggestions on this poem, especially the ending. Listen:

 

The push of youth gives way to the pull of old age
its gravitational field weighing upon each step
in a struggle to stay upright

I look at myself in the mirror to see what is there:
a worn piece of shoe leather that has become my face
the lines telling of a journey taken without a map
the worn eyes that have gazed upon too much

There is less acuity of senses now
less feeling in the hands and legs
but some things are felt more
like the cold which even on a summer day
leaves me with a chill I imagine is
death’s coming attraction

Emotions grow less sudden but more deep
put away except for special occasions
brought out for the young to behold
in wonder that something so old
could feel at all

I am being pulled a little faster each day
every moment racing toward the horizon
only a matter of time until I get there

 

©Daniel von der Embse