To be young is to live poetry
Vague and undecided
Scattered and without structure
Flowing freely onto the paper
Pulsing with life and emotion
Breaking boundaries
Finding purpose
Wandering


To grow older is to become prose
More ordered and detailed
Still alive
Still full of feeling
But more easily understood
Staying neatly between the lines
Bringing clarity to chaos

To be old is to tell stories
No longer scattered
No longer so detailed
Still thriving
Plot lines have all developed
And ended
Now is the time to tell them over
In tales containing no questions
But with a clear beginning and close Passing on lessons to poets and writers
Who will one day be storytellers
Just the same

To die is to become myth
Stories told over and over
All ending the same
More or less
But no one left to recall
Exact details
Shrouded in mystery
Gone but
Not
Forgotten