What is this growing old affair?
Where aches and pains are everywhere,
And your hairbrush holds more hair than does your head?
What is this eyestrain that occurs?
Where suddenly the world’s a blur,
And you can’t make out a thing that must be read?

The hearing that was once acute,
And to almost every sound attuned,
Becomes a jumbled mass of muffled sound.
Until you’re looking right and looking left,
Terrified you’re going deaf,
And it feels as though your head is spinning round,

From looking one way then the other,
While attempting vainly to discover,
Where in Heaven’s name a sound came from.
Then your sense of smell and nervous system,
Conspire to undermine the wisdom,
All your life you have depended on.

Your memory, once unsurpassed,
And sharp as a tack, in years gone past,
Has erased itself like pencil from a page,
You doubt each decision that you make,
Check each lock ten times, just in case,
Yes this, my friend is the pre-requisite of age.

You’re confidence goes west as well,
Just as your ankles start to swell,
And every joint you have begins to seize.
The muscles that once held you trim,
The smooth complexion of your skin,
Have gone, and now you sag around the knees.

You become argumentative as well,
Make your loved ones lives a living Hell,
Whilst trying to be pleasant and polite,
For though others tell you, what you say,
Does not apply, not now-a-days,
You’ll argue tooth and nail that you are right.

Is this some great conspiracy?
Against us all, or only me,
And is there nothing I can do to change it?
Please give me a hint. Give me a clue,
If there is something I can do,
For if there is, so soon would I arrange it,

But if there’s not, then thus it be,
I shall age with dignity,
And I will take whatever fate may give.
Yes I’ll carry on without complaint,
Become old and frail and belligerent,
For that’s so much better than the alternative,

For the alternative, when all’s said and done,
To growing old, is dying young,
And for death, I think I’d rather wait a while,
So aches and pains and memory loss,
Bring them on at any cost,
And like most old folk, I will try to smile.


By S.E.Ralph

7th-12th—2015