Old Man's Child Poem by gershon hepner

Regard me, one side and the other,
each side is not the other’s brother,
for usually each side’s in hiding
behind my artifice, the siding
which makes my wombhouse weather-proof,
ensuring, if I ever goof,
no insults pour and rain inside
my brain, the attic where I hide.
While all the world looks at my face,
I occupy a different space
than that which surface siding covers,
not even recognized by lovers.

There’s something never I forgot,
just like the poet, Pani Wat,
the child that lived inside me once,
when I, though simple, was no dunce.
“If I forget you, oh my Warsaw! ”
sighed Aleksander. He foresaw
that ultimately everything
would be forgotten, but the spring,
recalling, as it drove him wild,
his youth, an old man’s only child,
because his spirit was excited,
and love appeared to be requited,
in that dim, distant time called youth
when men pursue the goal called truth,
a past whose equanimity
inspired like infinity.