A Strange Familiar Land

  We had wandered into a strange land where everything was familiar but different than how we had left it.  A land of old, old women with fading tattoos; Celtic symbols on their hands and cryptic words winding round their bodies.  The women wore their once long hair cropped short, as long hair looked misplaced when you were old.  It was a land of old, old men with saggy ears, tired of carrying long forgotten gauges.  The men wore comfortable cardigans with tiny metal studs in their shoulders to show they still hadn't lost their edge, still hadn't sold out.  And let me tell you, in this strange land these old, old men and old, old women they were hardened by all the years they had seen go by, but baby, when they smiled, oh when they smiled how it lit up a room so completely.  And on Sunday nights, when they'd put their music on the stereo, oh how those smiles shined.