Old Pen

[lofro]

"Old Pen"

I retired a pen today,
a Pilot Precise V5.
Ball point, black ink,
The kind with a cap instead of a click.

I don't know where I got it.
Maybe it was in a pack of three,
Or a friend's permanent loan;
It seems like it just appeared in my pocket.

That pen went to hell and back.
Its paint peeled off, its ink wore thin
As it traced a road from Nairobi to Minas Tirith
And corresponded with girlfriends and Van Gogh.

It shed the last of its lifeblood
On a scrawled course list.
It died in the middle of Taoism,
Never to write again.

Just a ballpoint pen, I guess,
One of a million;
I've got a new one already
To write its brother's eulogy.

Plastic cracks, wells go dry,
The trashcan burial awaits;
The pen is dead, gone away,
But the words still remain.

-1-22-06