Prose, A Life Defined

Supplies await and yet I sit.
The spark of art evades my eye.
The desire to create lost.
My hands ache with the need,
my heart denies.

Soon a mark of time becomes mine.
Another year of life spent.
Passing without notice to the world at large.
Changes become glaring through pictures.
I have become old before my time.

I ponder where I have been.
A time of excess in my youth.
The results of which, now my plight.
Lungs reject simple air.
Legs swell, drowning weight my reality.

Lovers chosen with exits in mind.
Solitude preferable to commitments.
Trust, a word foreign to my heart.
Loneliness my word to define.

Brave and wise, words used by those who do not know.
No title is mine. Of those or scholars.
Opportunities to learn lost with time.
A career with honors passed me by.

My legacy simple, nothing profound.
Three children, loved, molded and set to fly.
A few words to bind, fancy leather unwarranted.
A small remembrance of a quiet life.

Love was mine in the end.
Her eyes met mine, all wishes realized.
No judgment shown of what I lacked.
Her eye saw peace, this family her gift.
A wall she crumbled with one shy smile.

For all my life her image in my eye.
Unfound and undescribed, I waited for my time.
That day my glory, she became my life.
As arms entwined, her scent became mine.

Some say we sin, these feelings should be denied.
We harm our children in this life.
And yet peace is ours, they smile with pride.
Friends gather and know this home holds contentment inside.

If nothing else I gave this gift.
Of truth and pride for all their life.
Degrees do not fill my walls.
Portraits of a life dominate there.
It is all I have to give.
I pray it will have been enough.