We’re All Old Souls
Published in
Jun 14, 2021
At first, the years began to trudge;
one day marched into the next
with agonizing slothfulness.
My birthdays never seemed to come:
anticipation — growing pains.
Then everything seemed to change.
I do not know how or when,
only that the pages of
the calendar began to turn
with increased velocity
until twelve months could fit into
a three-by-two laminate card.
Now I am old. From this side
my years stretch backward, far beyond
my day of birth and long before
my dad learned how to fly — before
a horse was shot out underneath
my forebear in the Civil War.
Life is the river that flows both ways
without end and in the end
it turns out that we’re all old souls.
©2021 Darryl Willis
