Colin F. Jones

WHEN WE GROW OLD

When we were all the things we could not be,
When not much higher than a grown-ups knee,
When we thought the world was all our own,
Well-fed or only skin and bone.
When we frog spawned in the culvert drains,
And stood for hours just watching trains:
When the stinging nettles made us cry,
And we tortured moths to watch them die.
Then we were innocent and true,
With a knowledge that we all outgrew.
Becoming what we were taught to be,
Having lost the thoughts that made us free.
Yet, perhaps it’s true what I am told,
“Such thoughts return when we grow old.”