It all began
with the glowing green meadows
cool, dew-moistened  blades of grass
softly pressed into the shape of a
child’s naked feet running
frivolous and joyous
in the backyards of my innocence.

In time, the azure-blue skies
puffed with the carefree
brilliant white cotton-candy clouds
of my adolescence fed my wandering dreams,
lifting me to new heights,
pressing me tenderly against the heavens.

In my teen years, the skies grew heated
beneath the raging, orange-flecked
storms battering
the massive walls of my pubescent limitations.
I fought bravely against
the darkening forces shaping me,
but was laid low one day
with the sizzling strike of a silver bolt of lightning;
my body then forged in the ruby red-hot fires of puberty.

As a young man, there came a day
with you in it, that a star as yellow-bright and full of light
washed over me, igniting my purpose and possibility.
I was blinded by the sheer beauty and intensity
of the nearness of you, awakening within me the
amazing brilliant white glow of desire, love, and hope.

Eventually, the purple-black sheet of night
was pulled over me; the skies darkened
to a deep onxy and I was left lying in the
of the shadow of Death.
The lights dimmed as did my voice,
and the murky fingers of Death reached toward me.

I was immediately lifted up
into a new beginning,
as the soothing winds of forever
upon the palette of my life and
once more dipped my heels into
the forgiving  green  blades of grass
to paint eternity’s meadow.