In Memory of Youth

As children we prayed with silent faces
To our calender deities, each day
toward May an added angle to our smiles.
The freedom that killed away the same,
Away from school, away from pain,
To be baptised by the crushing sun,
Drenched by the whispering water
Of summer, God's words in disguise --
That eternal waiting was our work.
All the rest was easy peasy.

Now we work incessantly, devoid
Of that bright glitter of hope we once held
In younger smiling eyes. Poor wasted world.
The point was meant another way:
That by working part-time
We should retire early, not abstracted
From life, but in love with all,
The pain entailed, for we could then unveil
Its face as the test of happiness.
Where did we go wrong?