Continued from a pervious poem "The Talisman".

My Rosewood Fife
By John Herlihy

I have played many a tune in my time;
My rosewood fife has a tendency to rhyme.
We know notes have their ups and downs,
Producing happy and sad faces like clowns.
As an infant, I bubbled forth as a fountain;
As a toddler seemed like climbing a mountain.

When I was ten, I felt like a wire strung tight,
Young enough for everything to feel just right.
In high school, I wished to succeed at all I tried;
In failure, I cursed under my breath and sighed.
My early 20s saw me humming happy tunes,
As I studied the significance of ancient runes.

As working professional, I plucked my own strings;
When alone, I simply imitated what the bird sings.
If I fell in love, my heart sounded solemn cords,
My emotions became the adagios my life affords.
With receding hairline, bald spot, sagging paunch,
Aging echoes a fog horn on a ship about to launch.

At fifty, my body started to play a soulful dirge,
Discordant sour notes began timidly to emerge.
The decades suddenly seemed to be slipping away,
Whole years just disappeared that I wanted to stay.
That’s when I found inside my idle rosewood fife,
That began to play a melody that changed my life.

Now in my old age with its fleeting compensations;
I no longer need to prove anything as dispensation.
I now happily breathe in a second wind in my life,
Breath enough to play a tune on my rosewood fife.
Sweet tunes that are known only to a rosewood fife;
How I wish I had played them all the rest of my life.

My age old strings are no longer strung taut;
Exotic dreams and fantasies no longer sought.
Evocative melodies echo as I near the end of days,
Resigned to the inevitable and fully set in my ways.
A touch of the imagination still keeps me alive,
A constant blessing that only old age can contrive.