CLOTHESLINES, LAUGH LINES, AND CROW'S FEET

CLOTHESLINES, LAUGH LINES AND CROW’S FEET

Hang another pair of jeans out upon the clothesline,
Try as I might, they are far too tight, and that suits me just fine.
I cannot wear them anymore, my waistline keeps expanding,
I guess I’ve eaten way too much from the stress that life keeps handing.
Each day the world takes a chunk of my soul as it grows more demanding.

Strangely enough I still feel happy and far from incomplete,
I wear my laugh lines and my age spots well, I celebrate my crow’s feet.
Those strange sad wrinkles that sag with muted flair around my eyes,
Some say are a province of a soul both sad and wise.
I claim them proudly as my own, a trajectory that my life has drawn,
All the twisted weed strewn lanes down which my years have gone.
Time that’s lost to me forever to the ravages of my memory,
Time that grates and fascinates, as both a friend and enemy.

It’s clotheslines that are sagging for the outworn garb that does not fit,
It’s time to chill, to call Good Will, to make a good, clean break of it.
It’s laugh lines that are forming around these stoic lips,
The years have come and done their thing, yet still my spirit yearns to sing.
And I would not trade those laugh lines, though my youth they do eclipse.

It’s crow’s feet come like a coffin nail, to hammer home the truth.
Some things were not meant to last and one of these is youth.
I never shall be young again, the wrinkles they are everywhere.
The plastic surgeons all be damned, I guess I just don’t care.
With each passing year of time, my inner life grows more sublime,
And I guess the nugget I have learned is that I have richly earned,
Each sure, slow progressing sign of age that spreads with fervor across my face,
Clotheslines, laugh lines, crow’s feet, those outward signs of inner grace.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2011
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED