Seasons

The pain of the inevitabilty for some.

I want to shield you with my arms,
shelter you from fate.
Rage against time
and invert the hour-glass
to take us back
to the old days
of my trying youth.

Measuring me for dresses,
then those late nights
waiting up after dances.
till you heard my key in the lock.
Those poetry evenings by the fire…
Or me trying to keep up
with your fast gait .

I refuse to surrender you to amnesia
confusion and unsteady walk.
Fading sight and vulnerability,
dark uncertainty,
lonely, bleak nights
and fear.

I never could understand your tears,
when I fell and needed stitches
as a young girl.

It was my knee,
not yours.

But now I know.
God!
how I know.