The Echo of the Years By: Jim Gandolf

The Echo of the Years

Poem 

By: Jim Gandolf 

©️11092025

The breath is drawn, the first faint cry is heard,

A fragile vessel in a boundless sea,

And life begins, with every spoken word,

And every choice that sets the spirit free.

The deeds are sown, like seeds in fertile ground,

A tapestry of moments, fine and coarse,

In every silence, every joyous sound,

A river finding its eternal course.

The Forge and the Shadow

He builds his towers, stone by stubborn stone,

He battles shadows only he can see,

He loves with strength, and he can stand alone,

Or falter where true courage ought to be.

The promises he kept, the vows he broke,

The kindness lent without a thought of gain,

The heavy burden that he bravely took,

The solace offered in another's pain.

The River Flows to Sea

No moment vanishes, no act is lost,

Though time may blur the edges of the day;

The gain that came at what unmeasured cost,

The path not taken that still lights the way.

For in the quiet chambers of the soul,

Where final reckoning must finally meet,

These actions rise to make the spirit whole,

Or leave the memory incomplete.

Eternity's Archive

The flesh may fade, the earthly name grow dim,

The works of hand return to dust and air,

But what he was, held in the cosmic hymn,

Remains a constant presence, deep and rare.

For what a man does in his fleeting time,

The character he forged, the love he gave,

Ascends beyond the measure and the clime,

And echoes on beyond the final wave.

Jim Gandolf 

Note: In Milwaukee, Wisconsin; I was sitting on a park bench in the year of 2004, while my young son was playing at a park along the Lake Michigan shoreline. A older man sat down next to me on the bench, and we had a  conversation (Most people that know me, also know I talk to everyone. Some people call it the gift gabbing or, I call it, I love conversation).This man name was Frank, and he said something to me that was so profound, “What a man does in his lifetime, stays with him for eternity!” I wrote a poem on that phrase.