Where?

How can you ask where the years have fled
Have you not felt their wings
Touching like feathers the hair on your head
Have you not heard the music they sing
Do you not remember each sorrow and joy
The textures of pleasure and pain
The leap of the heart when a girl loves a boy
The feeling of winter and rain
Right now you stand in your old person’s skin
A tortoise too far from its shell
Whose mind rattles round like a pea in a tin
And whose voice is as cracked as a bell
I wonder my friend if you ever did find
One hour when you truly did feel
As if you were strong, not the servant of time
That you may have stepped off of the wheel
But no, you were busy, you never looked out
At springtime and wanted to run
You never grasped pain to defiantly shout
Nor stole just a moment for fun
I look at you, old person, alone and bemused
And I’m sad that you wasted your years
That you never had time to be cross, or amused
Or for hope, or for laughter or fears
I will tell you right now where the years have fled
Though you’ll hate me for what I must say
You forgot about life, and the clock in your head
And you just let your time slip away

©️jj 2022