Ballad of a Thin Old Man

eyes that have beheld so little
a spirit so strong and renewable
long before black and white had bled to gray
when an ocean of possibilities lay before me
and the world seemed round and full
my bright unseeing eyes happened upon
a pair of pale watery eyes

i thought i saw hope glimmer in those eyes
and i hoped that one day if my eyes grew pale
youth, dressed in all of its hope and fervor
would stop and say hello

i have not given thought to those pale eyes
until now

i have swum my way through so many oceans of tears
and washed up on distant shores
i find that i am the one now with pale watery eyes

and what you are mistaking as a glimmer of hope
is only recognition

tomorrow will find you with no remembrance
of pale watery eyes

until one day if you are lucky
when you find that your tides have recessed
almost back to the oceans from which you came
you too will remember how youth
dressed in all of it's hope and fervor
stopped to say hello one last time
before your pale watery eyes melt into the tide
and are washed out into the great beyond