Drained Fountain Of Youth Poem by Patrick Czyz

Behold before you the young man.
He is charged with dreams and want.
With heavy shoulders but a raised head,
He too beholds the world and you before him.
Looked up to from his small and tender kind
But down on from his older and expecting kind,
He must go about the world with its demands.
Many times he has been wrongly deceived
And fought for his life- a sad misuse of potential.
Others, his strong hands must last the lull of labor:
Thus his adventurous mind remains sadly still and static.
Untried youth and strength compels him to burden demands.
How many unloved girls and unlived dreams
Must go by with age and pass him only to be returned
‘Till he is old with a wrinkled face and worn eyes
That at last see them loved and lived?