" Too, Early Old - Too, Late Smart "

"Too, Early Old - Too, Late Smart"

Go anywhere out in the farm country,
Talk to any native sod busters, you'd
Hear them, back in the era of my youth,
Speaking Pennsylvania Dutch like this.

Language of these simple souls was so darn
Descriptive that modern speaking seems drab,
So drab, we have reverted to texting
Rather than talking on the telephone.

As a society, we already lost
The art of letter writing to the phone.
Now, this same hand held device can do both,
Along with taking photos and paging.

No, we can't go back cause the genie's out !
Having popped right out of the bottle,
His etherial vapors in spirit
Joining those of all our past ancestors.

To have known another time, to assure
Myself there is more than only today.
On the shoulders of our predecessors
We stand peering beyond comfortable.

We must harvest the eatables that grow
In gardens we plant, cultivate, and weed.
Like the lines the Dutch speak : quant, impressive,
Colloquial - we harvest these - also.

Ronald C. Downie