TO LIAM ON HIS 15th BIRTHDAY - Poem

TO LIAM ON HIS FIFTEENTH BIRTHDAY

 

(copyright 2015, by Dave Kiffer)

 

 

Nothing has or will ever change,

 

And I feel your pain, as you grumble

 

Along this narrow road, this town spine

 

Which we can only branch off slightly

 

Into evolutionary dead ends, never

 

Quite going far enough to get lost



When I was your age the new century

 

Was decades away, too far to be real,

 

Or to even seem touchable beyond

 

The trees, the rain, and the waves which

 

Have now covered the beginning of the

 

Millennium as deeply as the Titanic



But things have changed, I can tell now,

 

The stores that my mother and I shopped

 

Are no longer meant for us locals

 

The bars my father and I wintered in

 

Still overserve, but only shiny baubles

 

For those looking for a piece of Alaska



But remember in the shiny aggregate,

 

You can still find warmth in the icy drizzle,

 

Wrap yourself In fires that are stoked daily

 

By the habituals, unwilling to surrender

 

To the darkness and claustrophobia

 

And the distant embrace of the light

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