A Poem - 3/11/07

This year slithers slow like a snake,
each scale moving quickly along the sand
soon to be shed and left for dead,
as I slide upon the next.

I look inside, deep below the tasty layers of my ribs,
and what do I find,
a ticking clock,
a push and pull,
that goes round and round
circulating and cycling,
without direction

There is never a moment so heavy as walking out of a movie theater,
to discover this life is your own

and nothing can be done to hold it in place,
to put it down in celluloid silhouettes
dripping with the sweet melodrama
chopped up and strung together for all to see and understand

My father advised me:
patience – old age comes

I am left to wonder,
what is on his cutting room floor,
how many of his scales slipped away
without meaning

And I love him so.