A lifetime ago when I was a child
When feelings and senses were sharpest
I was confused by life...lost in mystery,
I saw and felt my world in a fog.

Learning was slow...
Understanding slower
As my sponge of a mind
Sucked up experience.
My body changed,
Grew slowly upward,
Adding new stimuli...
New thoughts to explore.

The world expanded...outward grew.
My senses sensed more, instinct withdrew.
Teachers taught...new ideas flooded in...
Standards were given and values were born.
I'm honored by living a life in this world,
Where mighty influences make my head spin.
The ideas of others become intertwined,
Melded, repeated, though not well defined.

Whence comes formal learning...
Except from qualified teachers?
Though informal experience teaches...
Does it teach only of practical tools?
Whence comes spontaneous thought...
Except from various learnings?
To learn to think for oneself...
Must needs involve ALL learning!
So any act of doing a learned action
(Designed by others for all to use),
Leads to innovation,
A catchword that defines...
Expansion of known concepts
To grow something new.

The newness of an idea,
Given life via innovation,
Needs value to grow...
To a useful extent.
Such newness may be false
Or weak in its use.
It may be dangerous
When first tried out.
The birth of any new idea,
Be it good or bad/evil,
Can be useful or not.
We all must apply
Our values to learn/explore
As we do our own thinking
About the truth of a concept.

My youth has fled,
Old age has come!
My mind is a blur...
So jammed with ideas.

I now find myself tossed to and fro
Lost in a fog of irrational confusion,
As I near the end, and reflect back
To the simplicities I saw as a child.
Cycles of family, of people I knew,
Left in the past like fallen leaves.
The values I cherish washed away
By some who teach that bad is good.

Our children are bent and twisted
From safer values lost in time...
Innovations and new ideas brought out
Add only to the luxury to lust and scheme.
Tis time to flock anew to those values I
Used to know when in my youth...back
When my senses were freshy acute...
My decades are gone, my years, I fear,
But few...thus I pass these profound
Thoughts on to you. What will YOU do?

© Urban R. Coombs 2009