Anniversary

Young and foolish, so the cliche goes;
the wise ones shook their heads, years later now
it's clear that they were right. Nobody knows
who on earth they'll be, or even how
the change will happen, except to say it will.
I'm glad back then we didn't understand.
We might have sensibly waited. Of course we still
would have changed, and everything might have panned
out just fine, but we would have changed alone.
This has been the harder way, but we
have found it sweeter. Still, if we had known,
we might not have been brave enough. You see,
as father to the man, the child made
true vows to grow up into, unafraid.
.