Utopia: Reminiscing on the Good Old Times

utopia upon a time
Utopia Upon a Time

Poet’s Notes: Utopia is a poem that centers an aged couple having a conversation. The old man reminisces to the times when he and his wife were young, in their prime.

He asks his wife questions about those good old days, trying to see if she remembers them and has cherished those simple times as the years flew by.

He recalls the simplicity and beauty of the environment in the first stanza and likens certain features of the village to bodily features of his wife that interested him and drew him close to her.

In the second stanza, he recalls the brightness of the moon and the refreshing feel of the rain. In this, he compares rainfall to the excitement he and his wife both felt when it was time for grandmother to tell folklore.

He then recalled the times where children played freely in the sand and did not need to worry about anything. Those times were music and dance and laughter was rife and expressed without inhibition.

He also thought of time times when they both would engage in house chores together and give their plants walks in the sun. A reminder of the love he felt then for his wife when he saw her tend to flowers and greenery featured in his thoughts.

The fifth stanza sees the man remembering the times when his wife was a potter and he would sit and admire her as she sang songs while creating art.

The sixth stanza sees the aged man remember those times vividly and express wonder at the stark contrast between those worry-less times and these troubling ones.

The final one-lined conclusion is a question that sees the man express a mountain of regret and oblivion as to the rapid disappearance of those times and the beginnings of these ones.

Enjoy Utopia Upon a Time!

Love, do you remember the old times?

The sun overhead, far above the clotheslines that stretched

through the straight-winding street, the iron poles orange

and fiery red as the blood of the birds perched on the handles

Sand, a contrast to the above, coarse, rough and smooth, too,

like the moles at the base of your throat

lingers, firm to the touch, hard as concrete blocks

for the forts and castles and water that sweep them

into nothing save spots and molecules


Darling, can you recall magic back in our day?

The moon at a standstill, looking down at us

so white, whispering tales of the dials and reflections

and asking if the wolves will howl tonight or if will we become them

Rain, drops of crystals that fall down your face

like diamonds in a hailstorm, premature and unfound

exist silently in the pit of your stomach

to patter as the quickening of feet

right into the town-square for grandmother’s folklores


Sweetheart, do you ever think of it before?

The children playing in the dunes, laughter abound as they

drew with toothpicks boxes in the ground that were small enough

to stand in with a foot and large enough so that they contained our very lives

Music, a language so familiar, the townspeople

with their banjos and drums, plucking strings and hitting

surfaces with rhythms akin to our heartbeats

and the women come out, you first, with backs arched

and their waist-beads and anklets bearing oneness with sacred soil


Honey, have you ever thought of that time?

Fire, reds and yellows and blues, flaring like a surprise as we

put more wood in the stove and fanned with our breaths, the

embers burning subtly into our skins, selcouth and welcoming

Greenery, emblematic of hope, giving sun-walks and drinks

as though they were family when we plucked

and spun coverings with rubber and cotton and paper

and went swimming in the town lake where you petted the

pretty water lilies that reminded me so much of you


Love, do you remember the old times?

You, kneading the clay, top to bottom before the wheel was

brought in and you went on to create pure art and cleaned

the brown off your nails with sharp vegetable stalks

Your lips bringing forth song, smile wide as the Nile, genuine, too

as the herons we see in the canals and ask to give

us white cuticles and golden Shea butter smeared on your

sandy brown skin, to swallow the sun and reverence the moon, where

fire and rain vie for your beauty and greens bore you children


Darling, I remember those times clear as day

When things were simple and we did not worry at all about the

earth blowing her bowels into our faces and the rains breaking our

clay pots and forts and quenching our fire

The sea overflowing, pouring live fish into our mouths, when we were

ever present in dance and laughed without restraint, when the sun

shone through the clouds and smiled upon our children in plant pots

needing nutrition and did not blacken, when the mountains and valleys

and hills stood guard and spoke directly to our spirits


Sweetheart, honey, where have those times gone?

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For extra info on climate change and what we, as regular people, can do to save out planet, visit NASA Global Climate Change.

2 Comments

  1. Avatar for Zainab Sharif Zainab Sharif
    December 17, 2020
  2. Pingback: The Prudent Lives / Part - 2 - The Uncoiled
    January 16, 2021
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    January 3, 2023

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