For Stan

This stroll I’ve taken time and times before.
Each moment was as pleasant as the last.
I’ve seen the trees and harkened to Stan’s lore
while trodding grass as green as days long past.
For green and lush they were spite all the pain
and now I can recall the loveliness.
The fear is still remembered, but as gain;
those lessons learned that helped me to address
the joys and how to keep them close to me.
And so I walk again with my old friend
to gaze at flowers red and blue he sees.
We pass old huts whose roofs begin to bend.
Like us they now walk slowly in the sun.
I hear a mockingbird who, like a hawk,
keens sharply causing rabbits near to run.
No need to give a voice to quiet talk,
the sound the path makes is enough for us.
We two are old and like the huts we creak,
so I thank Stan without the need to speak.
Yes, old now and if wiser we don’t know.
Mistakes seem fewer, although just as hard,
but still we’ve come here time and times before
and I’ll keep coming back as life retards.