Old Friends

Sat on a park bench like bookends

A newspaper blowin’ through the grass

falls on the round toes

Of the high shoes

Of the old friends

There we sat on the third-floor balcony of her vacation home.

My old friend and I reconnecting after all these years.

Who knows why we lost touch?  It happens.

My habit of pushing others away takes a toll sometimes.

And the busyness of life and distance challenges the connection.

Old friends

Winter companions, the old men

Lost in their overcoats, waiting for the sunset

The sounds of the city sifting through trees

Settle like dust

On the shoulders of the old friends

Happy to be in each other’s company

Reminiscing about days gone by

Crazy days of our haphazard youth

And the harsh realities of what happened between then and now.

Can you imagine us years from today?

Sharing a park bench quietly?

How terribly strange to be seventy

Not seventy quite yet

But wondering about time – our time

And how to keep moving forward

Through the adversities of life and living

Knowing that our shared experiences mattered.

Old friends

Memory brushes the same years

Silently sharing the same fear

What will become of us?

What will time cast upon us?

We wonder together what life has in store

And how the ending of our story will be written.

A time it was, and what a time it was, it was

A time of innocence

A time of confidences

Our youth was crazy and carefree

Living life as only you can when you’re young

Anything in the name of fun

Dangerously daring fate.

Long ago it must be

I have a photograph

But here we are

Well beyond all grown up

Questioning the choices we made

Glad for the experiences we had

And the friendship we shared

Laughing over photographs

When we were wild and crazy kids.

Preserve your memories

They’re all that’s left.

But now when the future is fuzzy

And we look at the years in the rear-view mirror

I’m happy that we shared

A common youth

That you know things about me and I you

Only we can know

I’m so thankful for you in my life

Then and now and forever

To Helen

My old friend; my bookend

Forever ’54

“Old Friends/Bookends”

Copyright Paul Simon