mere men:

In the sixties

they belonged to the sea,

each day as the sun broke free

to warm the canvas tent

and steal sleep with brewing heat,

waves beckoned from beyond warming sand

calling the tanned bodies to submerge,

to forget the land and dream

of life in the deep green underneath.

Now in their sixtieth decade

they visit the sea at the end of every year

but where once bodies stayed

until maternal voices called them back to upright life

now the water chills too swiftly

and hardly having entered the green

their feet return to the land;

bound above now

seeing the days tumble into years,

the memories of the child,

like mist that rises in the morning

then vanishes when the sun,

burn away with the dreams of the night

to bring forth each day’s worked for truth —

age diminishes the ability to imagine

faster than any neuron or tissue,

shrinks the psyche before
it dwindles the mind.