Twenty Five

Jeffrey Bowen - twenty five.png

twenty five 

once, when you were a little thing, 
and excited to tell me
about some imagined future event, 
you started by saying, 

“when i’m as big as you, and you are little like me…” 

and I was blown away to think
that in your child’s unblemished mind
you assumed
that this was simply
the way things worked. 

now that many moons and stories have passed, 
and we celebrate your milestone birthday
of five and twenty, 

i understand that you are not
quite suddenly
a quarter of a century old, 
but millenniums young

and rather than trading places, 
we have expanded like stars, 
to become, 
in our heart of hearts, 
exactly
the same age. 


Jeffrey Bowenfamily, chidren, youth