Write This, Oh Poet! Poem by James Walter Orr

You ask me what to write about,
You of the golden tongue,
As you sit and relate to me
Of when you were so young.

Tell us about those teenage dreams
That never will return,
Though the remnants of their passage,
Your heart will always burn.

Those thoughts of adolescence that
Were driven from your mind;
How they drove you to your twenties,
As you left them behind.

Tell how the dreams of yesteryear
Went flying from your life.
You lost them when you left girlhood,
And first became a wife.

Here now you sit just like a sage,
And mourn the days you left;
Those days of happiness you knew
Before you knew 'bereft'.

Tell of those pretty songs you know,
That you sing out aloud,
While the singing of the bluebird,
Lifts you above the cloud.

Tell how the taste of strawberries
Can linger in your wine,
And how the world can be so nice,
So sensuous and fine.

Tell how yesteryear's flavors can
Yet linger on your tongue.
Tell how you loved the stormy days,
When fresh air filled each lung.

Tell us the way those days of yore
Shaped your poetic mind,
And of the trail of broken hearts
That scattered out behind.