Old Jogging Man Poem by D.S. Bell

One-way privacy hides a seated old stranger,
Sunlight blinding wilful onlookers in view.
He watches joggers frequent by his high home;
With their trainers, all in their fancy trainers too.

The energy of some he takes to study.
Each and many awkward faces abound but one,
She, all smiles, is able and chatty,
And exercise, for her, be done as effortless as it is done proud.

Her life's joy was jogging, he recalls,
And with that, a bringing forth of earlier days did he please to do.
To relive a memory of great personal space outdoors,
Reliving, in them before dawn hours of morning;
Up on the old green hill.

In days of good health's thrill and days of happiness and of joy,
Does he dare drift onward and upward, still.
A time of their precious chance meeting,
A timeless encounter with her warmth,
A warmth that did thaw what is and was ice blue.

And, in his chair, the old man sits completely,
Furnished with a cheerful crease,
Holding tight to chest someone in picture;
Of a woman in jogger's stride, smiling.

A tear falls down to the carpet floor,
For a woman he once knew.
And the stranger whom jogs on by proudly,
Brings with her everyday, for a moment,
The life of that woman he knew.