Now comes the winter of this mortal voyage,

Glazed silver frosts the beard and thinning hair,

My youth a rich and plumbless pelagic age

Of squandered doubloons ‘round some shipwrecked lair.

Oh how the years have slowed the pulse of life,

My gelid blood flows thick through bolt rope veins—

Where once hope salved the scores of daunting strife,

Now poultices assuage bent limbs’ chilblains.

Still gloaming warms in embered memory;

That fair haired child yet sails on boats of stone

And cruises fearless on the grassy leas

To glide once more through Edens he called home.

I look upon my grandson’s cherubic face

And smile at promise that does time engrace.