A Taste of Beginnings

At night I used to climb to the rooftops of strange buildings
and listen to the sounds of the city,
traffic, arguments, the drunks singing as they walked,
the buzz of neon and the cries of distant sex.

I would pretend I could see the stars
because somehow I was closer to them,
and I would think in wonderment
of my teenage life, and how much

and how little I had lived,
wondering if adults were as well ordered
as they seemed.

I know now of course that they lived
a different kind of chaos
that the one my 16 year old brain had brewing,
full of worries and desires I never could imagine
someone so old might still have.

Now of course, I know better.
I know that worried do not evaporate with age,
nor does passion or fear or curiosity.
They grow richer perhaps, like wine,
but always, they are flavored

with the taste
of their beginnings.

About this poem

Our childhood affects us until we die. That is neither good or bad particularly. It simply is.

The picture was taken in Roanoke. Va.

Tom