The Passing

The change, it comes so slowly

Like the winter of our lives,

It encroaches while we’re playing,

While we’re laughing with our wives,

As the children wave goodbye

The first brief chill will still the air,

And that silence settles on us

As they turn, and close the door.

 

Then we stare long at each other

But we find no words to say,

You have been the faithful mother

That I married, back some way,

But I see your smile has faded

With the passing of the years,

And you turn your face away so I

Won’t see that trace of tears.

 

Are you thinking of that moment

When you held that new born child,

Of the joy of those first steps, or of

The day your baby smiled?

And the schooling and the learning

And the knees they brought home skinned,

Or the pride you took each time you watched

That graduation film.

 

While I find my own thoughts turning

To those days before we wed,

To your awesome, breathless beauty

As you passed, and turned my head,

Of that first-time kiss I savoured

Out beneath the apple tree,

When I took you to my heart, and you

First said you wanted me.

 

Now we’re grey, and more like shadows

Since the lust in us has died,

And we rarely touch each other

Since we turned to ash inside,

For the years of work and struggle

Took their toll on you and I,

And I hear you every evening as

You go outside to cry.

 

All those dreams that ended shattered,

All those hopes that turned to tears,

Here we sit, both disillusioned

With the tolling of the years,

And we pass our friends unseeing

As we wander in the street,

We are ghosts, a long time passing

Now our story is complete.

 

We are like the leaves of autumn

That have fallen from the trees,

Blowing through our days unspoken

With each passing, gentle breeze,

We will fade and be forgotten

In the long term way of things,

But we’ll cling in desperation for

What each last moment brings.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Deborah Brooks-Langford]

David.. wow..another poem that tears my heart out. geezzz I am in those years... this poem means so much to me.. gee can i explain???? how time takes away so much from our lives..from being disillusion to so many tears... wishing we could have love back the way it used to be... wow.. what can I say... GREAT WRITING... I LOVE IT... You just not know how much,.. I am a new fan of yours...

Debbie

[Coyote Poetry]

The words told the truth in the poem. Can't stop old age. If we are lucky. We don't have to survive the last days alone. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and the amazing poetry.
Coyote

[Tate Morgan]

Damn it Dave i tried to read this to my wife. Yet the heartbreak held within it was so real it broke my heart and choked my speech. Some of my own do the same. When they do I know they are good. This touches the soul of all humanity. The twilight years we all fear . Yours is a life well lived. Damn it Paget this is great!!

[Clayton Bardwell]

"The tolling of the years." It's a battle to the death. I refuse to surrender.

[Ed Fagan]

Raw honesty. This projects a somberness that overshadows that which should have been the golden years. It's sad to admit but I have seen this play out with some of the dearest people in my life. I suppose we are conditioned to see life in terms of Hallmark moments rather than brutal reality.

[Damien Davison]

I honestly am inspired by you. Such beauty, flow and wisdom... It seems like I'm reading the future and it's really intense. Thank you for sharing!

[Ravyne Hawke]

Very nice tale of the twilight years of a marriage and the empty nest syndrome. You've gathered here every scenario that shows the ending of the life of a marriage. It's a shame that some marriages come to this, but it is true that some do. Only bump in the road that caught me was the first stanza's rhyming... air and door do not rhyme, not even as a forced rhyme. At least they don't to me. Anywhooo.. Thanks for a wonderful write.