Amorous Ovid said, “young lovers are soldiers”
And that old men need not apply.
For young lovers, to see their loves, lift boulders,
Whilst old men prepare to die.
Yet what is love, but a sign of youth?
Do you think passing years have no hold
On the heart? It knows what is truth.
Smooth skinned adolescents, inside, can be old.
Speaking of which, if she is where the sun shines,
Spreading warmth along the path to the heart,
What holds back the gent from fruiting this vine?
Aren’t the rays of the sun kindling, to give love its start?
As for the aged soldier, his memory serving him well,
Recalled when his legs were young, up a hill he ran,
Gun drawn, pointed to the sniper, acting as if in a spell,
He snuffed the life out of him, a nation’s sacrificial lamb.
Does youth have such glorious memories? Of love or war?
All is fair, it is said, in both, and in both there is conflict.
Life, in all its glory, has bliss, horror and more.
No dear Ovid, it is not age! In this you are too strict.
The mind instructing the soul, ah, here’s the rub,
A too inflexible mode, gives a fear that freezes,
Making the soul shrink down to a small shrub,
Dry, brittle, its leaves subject to life’s breezes.
Let the soul live! Let it grab what it must.
Thus Ovid’s scold was about the lover’s failure,
To climb a mountain, kick rocks away, to sweep away dust,
On the journey up to the sun. Is that road unfamiliar?
Tell Ovid he’s wrong about the hearts of old men.
Some, that have been amorous, yet never in love,
They can tell their own stories. But those who had a when,
They have pursued it, that which shines above.
The weak souled find steadfastness too hot,
The lighted rays piercing, stripping away their ease.
Something shall be required, and they would rather not
Entangle in passion. Nor seek to please.
Ovid, old age rests not in the body, but in a spirit, expired.
(And the flesh is confused as to how it remains upright.)
What is the remedy when the heart, unmovable, is mired?
How to make the decision, and live in the fullness of light?
To walk in that glow, to accept Eros, cannot be forced.
Some realization must hit the mind, to fire sparks that run
Through the veins. Pay no heed as to its source!
Think only this: Nature blesses the lover who basks in the sun.
