The years passed by,
And I
Never noticed,
Where’st they went,
Had no clue,
How swiftly,
How sneakedly,
They flit and flew.
I was just a boy,
A moment just ago,
A babe on my momma’s teat,
Then running through clover,
in bare feet,
Forever feeling that feeling,
These millions moments over.
I worked at jobs
All my life,
I enjoyed ever’ one,
Played sports,
Went to college,
There I found a wife,
Married you ask?
Yes!
Just Yesterday it seems,
like a short but endless dream.
Yesterday, I was the groom,
Of a beautiful Wife,
Gwine on fifty-seven,
Years of our life.
Three kids.
Who?
Me?
You’re kidding.
Had no time for that,
Only minutes passed,
Not hours, days, years,
Raising children’s’ love and tears,
God that was fun!
And still is.
Career,
and a few beer,
Here and there,
filled a blur.
A good therapist,
I were!
Retired now,
Bam!
Just like that,
I cured folks,
I’m old now, maim,
Where did it go?
Time?
I want some of it back.
Why can’t life,
Be on circular track,
Why must we progress from moment,
To moment’s moment?
Why not savor,
Moments,
Forever?
Perhaps,
I may?
Perhaps that’s just it.
Perhaps once we’ve done it,
Done is the gift.
Many seasons I’ve savored,
Many moons crossed my sky,
Many years passed by,
I have moments to live,
A moment to die.
Author’s Note: Is life short or what? Why can’t we put on the brakes? Stop or go back to right wrongs? Go back to live joys? Go back to love long? Is Time but a dimension, yet to be conquered? And did you ever wonder why did God give us memory? If not to savor and enjoy? Just yesterday, it seems, I was an infant, boy, young man, graduate, daddy, husband, therapist, grandfather old. Yet I’m still all those things as I traipse through the corners of my soul. Earth is my living, Life after my goal. The years passed by, but not yet I.
The days lumber along, but the weeks go zooming by. It seems like only yesterday that I filled my weekly pill box. Don’t I just take the garbage out a day ago? Seems like I bought a week’s worth of groceries. I swear I folded laundry last night??? Wait! Is it my birthday again already? Where does time go? “Hey, ref! Put ten more years back on the clock”
I guess I could have titled this “Fleeting” or “Flashback” or “Whizz Bang” or “Life’s Journey” or as Hank Snow sang it “Moving On” or my poetic “Memoir.” “Years Passed By” is nice and will suffice😉
tom tenbrunsel
Poet Laureate of My Domain
Addendum: Happy feast of the Epiphany today on the Gregorian Calendar, which all my life I have lived comfortably by and see absolutely no reason to change; or Merry Christmas on the Julian Calendar, whichever you prefer. Either way, let there be peace on earth goodwill toward men (and women)!