Intimations of mortality



If only for a moment
I could see the world through younger eyes,
To look upon my life with new born innocence.
The innocence of a child.

Stop the clock!
Rewind the hours and the minutes!
Let me see the colours of my world in perfect hue.
Open again my ears to the music of the wisdom of age.

Allow my hands to touch once more the perfection of nature.
I would breathe and taste again the fragrance of my youth.
So to return and say, ‘Again, but not the same.’

Upon the battlefield of life I was taught to close my eyes.
To stop my ears against the cries of the wounded:

To touch, without feeling:
To breathe, without inhaling.
Lessons learned and in the final test…success.

The moment passed.
My open eyes sting with the bitter tears of age.
My youth? Gone.
In its place, the Wiseman, the Prophet, the Sage.
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Submitted by Novellini on February 04, 2015

Modified on March 14, 2023

46 sec read
79

Quick analysis:

Scheme XAXX XXXB XXX AX CCX XBXB
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 796
Words 154
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 3, 2, 3, 4

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