Old Friends

Old friends
Old friends
Sat on their park bench
Like bookends

A newspaper blown through the grass
Falls on the round toes
Of the high shoes
Of the old friends

Old friends
Winter companions
The old men
Lost in their overcoats
Waiting for the sunset
The sounds of the city
Sifting through the trees
Settle like dust
On the shoulders
Of the old friends

Can you imagine us years from today
Sharing a park bench quietly?
How terribly strange to be seventy

Old friends
Memory brushes the same years
Silently sharing the same fear...
--Paul Simon 1968

My work partner of 19 years who just turned 69 two days ago informed me today that she has brain cancer. I'm going to pray that we'll be sitting on that park bench when she turns 70.