Expiration Date

A poem for these times of waning sense and fading glory.

I felt inspired to write something totally different today—a poem—though I think it fits the feeling of these times.

The grass leans lightly away from the wind,

as the light grows dim in the once-golden fields,

now gray at the fall of day.

The song of evening bird cries across the plain,

and the earth waits to receive a rain

long in coming.

Summer sets in the western sky,

and trees nearby gently sigh

as the weather starts to turn,

their branches full of ripening cones

ready to provide an autumn feast

for squirrels and birds

with a few to spare and lie on earth

through winter snow beneath a blanket of needles

in wait of spring’s new birth.

—

I lie on my side in childhood sleep.

Though indoors, my cheek feels wet with the falling dew

because, as a child, I camped on the lawn

and watched the skies in eager search

of meteors and UFOs

till my eyes fell closed and cold.

Now, of that time, I wistfully dream,

content to let the cares of day fade away.

I recall a kinder earth,

a livelier path,

filled with quickening days and brighter hopes

and evening games of kick the can

or capture the flag

or baseball until it was too dark to see.

—

That was a time with no “play dates,”

just a ride on my bike along the street

to call a game from home to home

to meet in the back schoolyard.

Bring your bat, your ball, your mitt,

and choose your teams and play!

Then, at night with a friend, sack out

at home on the lawn

to count the world’s first satellites—

maybe one or two or three, at most, all night —

before they swam the skies

like schools of fish or cars

on highways through the stars.

We did not realize then

that we were watching the end of skies

that matched what all the eyes

of all the men and women and boys and girls on earth

gazed upon a thousand years ago.

—

That time was passing

and soon would never be again.

The sky became a parking lot.

So did the field we played upon,

and the school now has guarded gates

and metal detectors at the door,

and parents plan their children’s play,

and the kids spend evenings staring at 9-inch screens,

huddled on a couch,

barely aware of the stars

10,000 years of people watched at night.