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experiences the loss of childhood innocence, magic and imagination. It is part of growing older. Outside the parentheses the "children guessed.... that noone loved him more by more". This is the pure love of another character noone, loving anyone. Pure because the children guess at it while one can assume adults were oblivious.

The fourth stanza discusses the deepening love noone has for anyone. As time goes by ("when by now and tree by leaf")her love for him deepens to the extent that she became a part of him and shared his life intimately ("she laughed his joy she cried his grief"). The two have become one. "Anyone's any was all to her" shows the deep connection she has to anyone, in that anything that was important to him was important to her.

"Someones married their everyones" is a wonderful line in the fifth stanza that discusses yet another milestone in life: marriage. Everyone is settling down and getting married or, at least, coupling. Then live happens in "laughed their cryings and did their dance" as this line is reminiscent of Shakespeare's line " all the world's a stage and we are merely players". We all do our dance here for a while. The dance of life is coming and going through milestones. But these people "said their nevers they slept their dreams". Again, the nevers are negative views, "I could never..." fill in the blank with any of life's accomplishments or challenges. As a result of this "never", they didn't live their dreams but they slept them. These dreams never came to fruition. Again, pretty sad.

The sixth stanza repeats the phrase "up so floating many bells down" from the 2nd line of the poem. Bells in nautical terms mean a passage of time because at each hour a bell would sound. Also, there is the repetition of the idea of children forgetting as they grow up.

The milestone of death, grief and loss that we all must experience is discussed in "one anyone died I guess". The addition of "I guess" indicates that the person isn't sure or is unconcerned. Very often that is the way with death, others just move on. But his love noone "stooped to kiss his face" and then "busy folk buried them side by side". The people are busy and move quickly on with their own lives. No time to grieve or take a moment to observe another's passing. It's neat wording when the poem reads that they were buried "was by was" which are past tense linking verbs.

The last two stanzas are obscure for me other than to say that they indicate the passage of time again and life gave them what they put in to it with "reaped their sowing and went their came". If anyone reading this has insights to share, I would love to hear what you can come up with.

Wonderful, difficult words expressing the milestones that we must all face and a reminder that this life is all we have. Let's not say our "nevers"or "isn't" but have courage to say "is", "will", "can" and "hope".

Learn more about this author, Bob Nikunen.
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