Once A Man And Twice A Child Poem by Dennis Adonis

This poem is basically a straight forward story and is centred on an encounter I had more than ten years ago.

It is based upon my almost daily sight of an old man, who often lingers under a tree in the city of Georgetown, Guyana.

After passing him many times too often, curiosity caused me to query his status quo.

And of course his response was confusing and dappled; as the only thing I clearly interpreted from all of it was that I should not look upon him with scorn, as he is now old, and weak and need to be cared for.

After all, the last and clearest thing that he had actually told me came from Bob Marley's reggae hit; - once a man and twice a child.

I somewhat understood what he meant. So in this poem, I hope you can equally make some sense of it all.