Get your ass in gear: a poem

Residual Self Image
The boy within the man wants out,
to climb dirt piles, shirtless and barefoot,
run his fingers over muddy creek bed stones,
face the day with fearless abandonment.

The man curls his bare feet under pillows,
immobile and pensive on a well-worn couch,
pondering the foibles, the mistakes of the past,
his face buried into palms, searching for a future.

The boy needs the nourishment of the sun,
heat that makes cheeks flush, muscles pliable, sinewy,
expanse of air and space, the freedom to daydream,
all life’s little nothings, all of its everythings.

The man rises slow, aches and pains a reminder,
that he no longer is the fearless boy of his past.

The boy of memory smiles delicious, devious,
and the man listens to the invite to follow.

Motion is momentum, there is freedom in movement,
and this is what the boy has come to teach the man.