Too Late I Long To See: A poem by Donovan Baldwin

HOME | POETRY | ARTICLES
Literature & Fiction

How did the song go? Something about you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone? In the song, they "paved paradise and put up a parking lot". I've been back to my old stomping grounds of Pensacola, Florida on several occasions, and that's just what happened.

That's to be expected, I guess. The sad part is that there are a lot of things around that I could have had a hand in saving or remembering, only I didn't know what I had until it was gone...and I was gone.

Too Late I Long Again To See

I long again to see
The white sands I walked
When but a boy.

When I was that boy, I knew not
How deeply embedded in my soul
Was every grain of sand...
Each whisper and roar of ocean wind,
Every roll of wave and bend of tree

These forty years and seven hundred miles away
I can see each sight, smell each smell,
Remembering with joy the moments
That I once felt so happy
To leave behind.

If children could only understand
What the world they little love
Will mean in later years,
Perhaps they would live their lives
In happier circumstances...
Enjoying to the end of their days
Rather than sitting in another place
Wishing to return
To what they truly loved.

Christmas Eve in Texas, December 24, 2006, Age 62. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

SPONSORS

Don Baldwin
P. O. Box 380819
Duncanville, TX 75138