The Back Steps Of Life

I would see her sitting there…almost every day,

As I strolled in my leisure

headed to the future in my own way.

Often times I would smile and wave,

Sometimes I would even speak,

But she would never even look my way

For she sat alone on the back steps of life,

Watching and waiting for the coming end of her strife.

Her long gray hair lay matted on a dingy robe of sad neglect

As she pulled in vain against the wind of a dying past

trying… oh trying only to forget.

Warm now were the tears, which coursed down her face in jagged streams,

shattering into a thousand tiny droplets on the back steps of her dying dreams.

Silence was her only companion, loneliness… her nearest and constant friend.

A sad and consuming despair greeted her every waking day,

As she… on the back steps of life

awaits the coming of angels to take her away.

Her days of faded splendor now occupied her crippled mind

While convolutions of distorted laughter danced the dance of no more time.

Then one day, as to the future I made my way,

I noticed that she was gone

Never more to roam,

The back steps of this life

For she now has a new home.

J. Allen Wilson © 2005

www.Jallenwilson.com