Sun soaked streets in Italy
A place in time I’ll never be
1890s somewhere in Ireland
Distant relatives went about their business
Living off the land
Being only what they could have been
Reading stories of horseless carriages
Wondering at how such a thing could be
At night their minds to wander far
Out wax cloth windows to the stars
To the faces of their great grandchildren

The nineteen eighties were decades away
Life was simple
They had more to say
As all around they saw the changes
Locomotive / steamship / telegraph
Coming of the Wright Brothers
If not already sensing sometime
A flood would one day be
Reaching for technology
From the buggy and the carriage

At night
My mind wanders far
How sadness and joy
Can be so strong
For in a nearby room
My son is sleeping
In another invisible
My great grandchildren
What kind of world will theirs be?
No longer afraid of the future
Nor immortality
But will they bother to read
What I have said?
Much more than this
Just the twinkling of a star
Outside their bedroom windows


© 1982
Inputted and revised © 2019

590 hits as of January 2024

12/14/2019

Author's Note: Written at a time when my wife was pregnant with our first child.

Posted on 12/14/2019
Copyright © 2024 Chris Sorrenti