Precipice

I’m sat on the edge of a precipice

Two months shy of thirty-six

Where have the last thirty-five gone

Will there be sixty-five more, my son?

At ten I dreamed of dead poets

Twice that I read thrice the stoics

Then on the stroke of the big three oh

I stood and let my shackles go.

Now the hand holding the pen

Is withered and worn, what then?

The lyrical passages of time draw nigh

My pen tip bends, leaks ink as I cry.

Now here the lad he’s just turned three

To my mind he’s utterly free

No shackles will bind his legs henceforth

His every question will find its true north.

For while there is life in me still

Nowt shall hamper my iron will

My pen will write again with flowing ink

To bring books back from the brink.