Naps:

On languid; indolent river banks grows a sweet cool grass.

The sun hides, then peaks delivering calm warmth to the aged man.

Waters swirl around fallen trees; time grinds on and the old man softly naps.

Dreams fill his slumber; playful things from his youth crowd his fragile mind.

Of ponds and old mill streams he climbed stairways back unto another time.

Lefty was there and Sammy too; the boys of long ago; the friends he once knew.

They never saw the age of twenty-one, they never made it; their fate was not to chance.

Lefty died a POW on German soil and Sammy died on Omaha Beach in France.

Now today in the cool green shade, and old man softly naps.

J. Allen Wilson © 4/2008