Tell it to Yourself

PAD Challenge day 24: make your title; Tell it to(fill in the blank) then write your poem

…because the chariot of fire that sweeps the sky

Soon fades beneath vesper lullaby

With shadows sketched on the old stone wall

Where once a barn stood tall, but fall

And winter-spring-summer have taken their toll

Still, we tell ourselves we are not so old

And being mature is fine, like wine

And we tell ourselves that we don’t mind

The evidence of ‘wisdom’ where

Once raven tresses pleased our stare

Before the understanding of

Ecclesiastes bared its proof

And suddenly we realize

Truth is immutable; the lies

We told ourselves when we were young

Have borne their fruit; and we were wrong

Though Knowledge tricked us for awhile

Nothing has power to beguile

Time’s merry moments from its clocks

As years fall prey to soldered locks

Of air; though we rebel no one can fight

This swell of morning-noon-to-night

The Equalizer of a man

Comes once to all; a subtle hand

And then one day we say it, small

‘Our parents were right after all’

© Janet Martin