As a parent,
Your child’s first diaper
Is no delight.
But you endure
And when you remove the last
You cry.
As a child,
Your parent’s first diaper
Is no delight.
But you endure
And when you remove the last
You cry.
Series: Almost, But Not, Symmetrical
Your candle’s light has colored
And brightened my heart’s hole,
And when my wick’s been smothered
Your glow ignites my soul.
We do not grow more beautiful with age
Yet our age together grows more beautiful.
There is a calf-skin bond issued in 1648
To build dikes and canals in Holland
That still pays interest today.
Near 400 years.
For the people who built those dikes and canals
That the bond still honors,
Long since dead,
And their children dead,
And their children’s children’s children dead,
What an accomplishment!
The armies of people who dug the canals,
Who stacked the walls,
And bent nature to their will were heroes
For their work has fed generations.
The will of mankind
Reigns
Over hundreds of years!
And the million-year-old sea
Smiles at mankind and says,
“Wait my precious, for I will that you return to me.”
And the billion-year-old sun
Smiles at the sea and says,
“Wait my precious, for I will that you return to me.”
Life is not as extreme as I imagine,
And more extreme than I can possibly imagine.
A. B. Clarke 