An Ode to Youth

The Voyage of Life: Youth, by Thomas Cole (public domain)

Spry callow creatures
wielding the great flame
of unabashed vitality
can both flourish
and collapse swiftly
in the fraction of a second,
it is a voyage that begins
limitless and undefinable,
having such towering might
yet knowing not how
nor what to do
with a gift so intoxicating,
so self-seeking
that the past becomes as
meaningless as dust
and the future irrelevant;
to such fervent eyes
the heavens hang so low
that one can almost
roll a star off the sky
using only the palm
of their strong, plump
and unwrinkled hands,
the very same way
you would pluck
an apple from a lofty tree
or cull a scarlet rose
from a vast prolific garden—
something you’d see
as belonging to you
and to you alone.

© Giovanni Sonier 2019