This Poem.......

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This poem didn't start here,
and it won't end here.
It began in 1960, in my ninth grade classroom,
when the words started coming
and I couldn't stop them,
so I began to write them down.

Each acquaintance on the road to Never
whispers through the soul
that first poem said
and leaves a soft thought to remember
when Tomorrow dawns cold.

I was fourteen. Since then,
the words have accompanied me
on a long journey: through pain
and sorrow, heartbreak and healing,
under blue skies and grey,
me always looking up,
in joy, in gratitude, in love and wonder,
words skipping across the page,
at first in search of, and then finding,
better tomorrows.

The words watched me grow old.
They grew wiser. They began to look back,
to evaluate, to sum up, to see the wondrous pattern,
the many gifts, the way I have been guided
by invisible forces.

The words drew me to the sea;
they exulted up and down the shore;
they wrote odes to joy and to
a big black wolf; they mourned his loss.

They began to chart the Crone Path,
but this poem isn't ending yet.
There is still one chapter, still more beaches
to trod, still more blue skies, more looking up,
more gratitude, more wonder.
No, this poem isn't ending yet.
Not yet.

Day seven of Wild Writing: This poem starts (or doesn't start) here.