The Duck Pond Poem by JAMES T. ADAIR

It felt like Spring outside today
I'm all alone, everyone has gone away
I threw my back out shoveling coal
needed because while its warm, its bound again to be cold

It's not just my arms hurting or my back
or that my life has somehow gone off track
I feel lonliness again today, and my heart I try to tuck away
because sometimes there's a feeling inside I just can't express or display

But if you could see my eyes, you'd know my emotion, they'd give it away
I'm daydreaming in a most hurtful, lonely way
Dreaming of a duck pond in springtime, sitting with every woman
whose ever been briefly mine and who has gone away
I miss the feeling of affection, solitude, kissing and tenderness today

And it all seems so impossibly far away, too much of me is wasting away
that might be something to someone this day, I wish I could run away
but life is holding me here in it's ever smothering grip
away from it all today I wish I could somehow slip

I have love inside of me I realize, but the wounds of someone
who depite the constant heartache of failure, still dreams and tries
If you were here you'd see the sandness in my blue/hazel eyes
a simple man, a good man, who's felt discarded and to whom love only lies

I've never truly felt the words 'I love you' because each time they betray
and seem like words for someone else to keep but for me they could not say
and if they ever did, they felt false and insincere...If they were true, they'd still be here
Still today I wish I had a lover to be near, or a liar to hold me and call me 'dear'

There are times when a man needs only a woman to hold
to for that moment make the world feel shared and not so cold
Love is just a dream I torment my self with this day
A day I wish I could go to sleep and awake with one who would stay

Around the mirror smooth duck pond we'd walk hand-in-hand
woman to this weary man, her eyes would meet mine and understand
as we survey spring flowers, and watch the ducks glide down to the water as they land
and feel the cool gentle breeze of love whisper through the trees small and grande

Walking at an easy carefree pace, glancing at the simple beauty of her smooth face
feeling the long forgotten feeling of being someone's man
cared about enough to feel trust in the moment unplanned
I'm sure i'd like to be in that place, my heart beating in harmony
lat a lover's pace

Maybe we'd find a romantic park bench to sit and relax our minds
our tensions eased as the sun sparkles on the water and we lean into each other an intertwine
like the easy cantor of a poetic rhyme, we'd visit another world, void of age or time
and in that moment, I'd be hers only and ever and she'd be mine

As the whispy white clouds dapple the bright blue sky
I feel free and feel so high, to be something to someone...don't know why
and the gentleness and completeness of the moment makes her cry
and as my tear wells up too, I kiss her's from her eye

Back to reality now, in this empty room my heart heaves in my chest
and to stop the pain inside I take a breath and try my best
but I know inside I'm just a mess, expecting from life less and less
relegating myself to a dungeon dark, of inner lonliness

But inside there is a voice trying to get my attention, to say I have a choice
but today I can only see the duck pond imagined inside of me
knowing that is where I would rather be, on the park bench near the tree
one with the world, with a sense of love forever and harmony

But I torture my soul with dreams I'll never see
unless my love comes to find me and rescue me
without her, I can never really be free
to share with her the man I was meant to be

I'd better get back to my chores and try to think no more
or else lonely I'll become, more and more, like before
Maybe its the weather today, or something in the air
but I wish you were here, or I was there, and love was our only care