These are poems about time, poems about the process of maturation, poems about aging and growing old, poems about life's journey and its destination.
There is also a collection of my early poems, many about getting older and aging, toward the bottom of this page.
Learning to Fly
by Michael R. Burch
We are learning to fly
......
When you see me sitting quietly,
Like a sack left on the shelf,
Don’t think I need your chattering.
I’m listening to myself.
Hold! Stop! Don’t pity me!
Hold! Stop your sympathy!
Understanding if you got it,
Otherwise I’ll do without it!
When my bones are stiff and aching,
And my feet won’t climb the stair,
......
I hope we’re one of those couples.
Who stays in love their whole lives
Those couples who slow dance in the kitchen,
Those couples whose love derives,
From honesty and patience,
compromise and trust.
Those couples who laugh and joke,
Even when they’re full of crust
......
dear diary . i am turning twenty . there is nothing that i want , but to go back home .
to the village i grew up in , playing with friends , socks pasted with dirty sand . i am
not in despair , i spend my time thrifting clothes , jewelry that fits the color of my skin ,
footprints that i follow as i walk outside . i am full of sliver , tattooed on my skin , left
arm filled with bruise . i feel bad as i look at myself — how i ended up looking like a fool .
cigarettes tasting good as it never did like before , cherry wine ; i swallow it , like a glass
of water that i consume when i was seven . i see, an orange cat in the wild . i want to be
free just like it . running , feeling the breeze , sun being paired with my pale skin . i do not
know what to do . i do not want to turn twenty . i am scared . take me back to being a kid ,
simply enjoying the life that i never knew i had of me .
......
How old you've grown, my love.
And yet,
You haven't changed a bit,
From that young girl I first saw,
On whom I plied my wit;
To win her
And even then, you lived within her
As now, she lives in you.
It begins softly-
a slower rise from the chair,
a name on the tip of the tongue
that stays just out of reach.
Lines appear
not as flaws
but as evidence-
laughter lived,
worry carried,
......
in his sunset years he daily
traversed a mile to smile
waiting
w a t c h i n g
A L E R T
the lilt of phantomic voice to
O P E N his
......
dear diary . i am turning twenty . there is nothing that i want , but to go back home .
to the village i grew up in , playing with friends , socks pasted with dirty sand . i am
not in despair , i spend my time thrifting clothes , jewelry that fits the color of my skin ,
footprints that i follow as i walk outside . i am full of sliver , tattooed on my skin , left
arm filled with bruise . i feel bad as i look at myself — how i ended up looking like a fool .
cigarettes tasting good as it never did like before , cherry wine ; i swallow it , like a glass
of water that i consume when i was seven . i see, an orange cat in the wild . i want to be
free just like it . running , feeling the breeze , sun being paired with my pale skin . i do not
know what to do . i do not want to turn twenty . i am scared . take me back to being a kid ,
simply enjoying the life that i never knew i had of me .
......
Though my world view become tarnished with age,
Let my imagination not so follow.
May its memory burn bright with the vigor of eager youth,
Happy to confront the dichotomy of discovery,
Which doesn't comport with my upbringing, my schooling, or my experience.
Only then will my self-worth meet the expectation of my promise.
Only then will I fulfill the destiny that Providence allows.
That pool can magnify, fool, and obscure.
But down at the bottom, that pool can cure.
......
Sweet recollections of youth,
tiny giants in immense world.
When days were lite and slow,
birthdays scarce and Christmas distant.
Knowledge... perspective
mortality, brutal realities
swelling with years
shrinking the world.
......