Tongue of My Youth

Tongue of My Youth

is a photo-copier of memory
remembers the taste of porridge,
and cod liver oil, spinach too
then corn flakes arrives, scrub ball
in the backyard, even
swimming in leech-filled lakes

now I am subdued in a fast
lane of an Indiana 500 world,
racing kites no longer an option
nor hurrying my canoe
through the slap of summer’s storm.

In the domain of aging years
I am like a voyeur astride roads,
slower in the seasons of life. I am a
trickle of the greater one
I once was.

© Richard L. Provencher

First published October 2010
Message in a Bottle Poetry Magazine