I’m sitting in the stillness
Watching the birds fly
Watching the sunset
Give colour to the sky.
I hear my neighbours in their garden
Talk muffled behind their kids play
And I’m not intentionally trying to listen
But I can’t help but laugh at what the kids say.
 
They talk of missing school
How it feels like summer is already done
And they list the things they love
Like just to do that is fun.
 
There is such life in their voices
I’m lifted by the words they say
As they are so excited making their choices
Naming the things that make their day
I’m taken back to my own youth
Something that is forever slipping away
But kids have a way of giving it back to you
Effortlessly, in their play.
 
Talk about their favourite sandwiches
Simple things they love
Giving off the feeling
That this world is inherently good
And I return to me
As they venture back inside
And I look up a little differently
At the sunset in the sky.

I sit in the stillness
Feeling the breeze, watching birds fly
And I sense the loss of youth
To be a trick of the mind’s eye.
 
© Daniel Breslin