Because you are the age that you are
and because I am the age that I am
such thoughts must be remembered
and many feelings are muted

And so I reach back
straining my memory
reaching as if behind my back

For the fiery restlessness
striving to pursue, to attain to remarkableness
To do something, to serve, and put hands to the plow

I remember the ache for beauty
That has never gone away
The longing for a better world

To cast off, cast away
For far off land - brighter seas

It’s still there of course
even after all these years, and the intervening things
Perhaps I have sterilise it
Perhaps I’ve neatened and straightened it
places it in tissue paper

Perhaps life has muted the ache
Dulled the pain?
In part. It is so.

But I have learnt too, in these years.
Of the Lord’s patience
Of the cost one pays
To be slaves, even as we are kings and queens

Oh dear one
You must also pay it
Perhaps you’ll pay it away from me
Where I cannot comfort you

But I am only a selfish sort
This talk of sending you off is all vaulting sentiment
It isn’t for your sake that I pray you’d stay
It’s for to lessen my agony

And if there were another way
I’d rage like the best of them