(my first poem intended as spoken word)

Right now I feel like I've been existing since the beginning of time

Like I passed the millenia in a single moment and went right on existing

Seventeen years...

Seventeen years and lifetimes upon lifetimes of human experience compressed into a tiny little ball, a blink. of your eye

When I look back on my life it's just- vast.

With epochs and ages marked clearly in the sand, but that just doesn't match up....Seventeen years...

They say I've got an old soul.

My English teacher. In high school said it

because she could always depend on me to laugh at her ancient allusions

Jefferson Airplane, Grizzly Adams, Dick Van Dyke

But that's not right...because a soul doesn't GET old it doesn't wrinkle or wither or weather...It doesn't feel warm rain or the cool touch of death

It just goes right on...existing.

Seventeen years and I've known love.

Have lost love, rekindled love, rejected love, agape love.

So what is there left here

For anyone who wants to do more than just

go on existing?

We sat alone, together.
Wind caressed your cheek- my lips...
Surrounded by beauty
Watching beautiful people live beautiful lives.
And we were beautiful together
Your radiance became mine as I became yours.

Oh, to be young and in the spring of life!
As for me, I have sucked out the marrow of it.
And what has it left me...
Flesh and blood- is it so elemental?

These are the things I go over and over,
Emptying out the pockets of my life.
The spark of my youth is out,
To ashes I shall return.

But you, oh lovely and lively as the Western winds,
Follow well in order!
Pioneering youth, hear this now-
The time of action is drawing ever nearer.

Do not be discouraged by darkness,
         -For out of dark clouds comes benevolent Rain.
Do not let your elders look down on you,  
          -For when Flood comes you alone will remain.
Do not fear Winter's ice,
           -For it will always melt in the Spring.

These are the things I go over and over, Emptying out the pockets of my life...