Poetry

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He sits in the park and feeds all the birds,
And watches the children at play,
An old man of eighty, he sits all alone,
Remembering a time in his day,

When he was a boy, just playing around,
Making fun of a man on a bench,
Who was feeding the birds and watching him play,
A dirty old man with a stench.

"Just a dirty old man" he heard himself say,
And all the kids started to laugh,
They would tease and make fun, like it was a game,
They were thinking the old man was daft.

"Just a dirty old man" with nothing to do,
(They knew not the things he had seen),
"Just a dirty old man" with no where to go,
(They knew not the places he'd been).

A Sailor, a Merchant, a Preacher, a Dad,
A Doctor or maybe a Judge,
If they would just ask him and learn of his past,
But they would not try; would not budge.

And the old man just sat there and took it all in,
As they teased him by calling him names,
For he knew that in time they would be just like him,
And the brunt of some other kids' games.

Now the young boy turns eighty years old today,
And sits on the bench and weeps,
As the kids in the park call him 'dirty old man',
For those things that he sowed, he now reaps.

by David Ronald Bruce Pekrul

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