A child’s life is striving for future.
An adult watches the past and the future.*
Old men thirst for the past , fear the future.
The “Now” knows none and scorns past and future.

Haunted by the past,
threatened by the future,
consumed by the Now,
an old man lives under sentence.

One day follows another
into the unknown.


*nervously , at times


it takes time, you see

My father loved to read
But now his vision was failing.
He and Mom lived “under care”
And his world had become smaller.

He rarely shared his emotions
And his job meant that he spent days driving.
Now, he worked no longer
And his car sat in a distant dusty garage.

On one of my rare visits
He asked me to get the car
And park it in front of the center.
While worried that he might try to drive,
I delivered the car, and went to talk with Mom.

About an hour later,
I returned to find him sitting in the driver’s seat
,the car unstarted!
I thought it strange, and did not understand.
But now,
I believe I do.