Mid-June and Saturday night still feels
oddly quiet; the kids play noiselessly in the street
while the weather teases with summer-like
breezes. Tourists in Omaha begin packing
for their turn on our beach front porch.
So what is it about this late spring
that causes not just the young lovers
to profess their naive adoration or
to find themselves lollygaging
for hours on park fairways
making daisy chains and promises
that will most likely not be kept?
All quietly wishing for the perfect
world that happens only
in Jay Gatsby’s dreams.
There must be a perfectly plausible
planetary alignment explanation for
what happens in May; all of the drama,
emotional upheaval that
young and old people feel.
Or maybe, the earth tilts, the gravity
shifts, and the once known paths
need to be re-forged through the
young minds while wise men
among us watch in amazement
as the sun sets on their youth
and the youngsters
don’t even see it coming.
Maybe time slips unnoticed
And tomorrow is 2015, 2020,
a long time from now, but youth
can not see it; they cannot see
time skipping past them,
laughing at their thoughtlessness.
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