What We Did...

We never did do all we thought we would

When we were young

But still, the door of opportunity

Is mercy-flung

It makes, through our mistakes a way to

Move forward, not back

And helps us, if we try, to make the most

Of what we lack

For wealth is not the equity of assets we may boast

But heart of love and gratitude for that which matters most

We never did find pie up in the sky

Or pots of gold

But we found something better on our way

To growing old

For in those places God ordained

To answer prayers with wait

We found a wealth of wonder

To humbly appreciate

And as we count our blessings instead of wishes and fears

In the light of true thankfulness Want's darkness disappears

We never did land on Fantasy Island’s

Destiny

But learned to trade in dreams for

Momentous Reality

The Brigadoon that lured us when

Love was still starry-eyed

Has baptized faithful service

With a sweeter, simpler pride

Where what we hold, we’ve come to see, is always on the verge

Of slipping through our fingers to the shores where echoes surge

We never did prove much more than our

Predecessors did

The trails we blazed merge like a maze

Strewed beneath heaven’s lid

Where feet, still fleet with dreamer’s dust will kick

Up sacred stars

Then turn to learn that wanderlust has drained

Youth’s sparkling jars

And molded rebel-clay into kinder thank-yous somehow

Keening a purer appetite for life’s Momentous Now

We did find out freedom of choice carries

An awesome weight

And what we speak most loudly needs no words

To validate

We’ve found the common ground of realizing

How it feels

To sense the Past, like puppies always nipping

At our heels

And though, so far from perfect or how we thought

It might be

We find the present is a gift to cherish

Thankfully

© Janet Martin