Reply to Rudy Francisco’s ‘Ouch’

any phrase that begins with ‘yesterday I was’
the old man says is a tale of regret
buried in a loose fabric of time.

little by little tears that visit the ground
are swallowed with the stream and its bed
says the boy who held the sun in his time.

the pain hurling every age
is a delicate shallow-wrinkle of history,
so this body learns to break itself

piece by piece
crack after crack
ash from art.

immortality lives in words of the old
it is trout for teeth that teases.
uphold your time by living it—true

Ruddapoet