Looking backward, I can see
twenty one was the age for me.
I could cast my vote, I could buy a drink,
I could say whatever I happened to think.
(I sounded a lot like a “parlor pink”.)
Problems were simply for solving;
worth any candles my flame.
Around ME the world was revolving
and all my tigers were tame.
I thought to myself, “What a game!”
But forty one brings a pall of gloom.
Sure, I can vote. God help me, for whom?
I can think and drink, but I fear to utter
words that could cost me my bread and butter.
(Even my brain is beginning to stutter.)
Problems resist resolving.
Candles melt in a flame.
The world I knew is dissolving.
I’ve learned that tigers can maim.
At forty one it’s not the same damn game!
Conclusions:
Now in my eighties I’ve entered, I’m told,
a “golden age”. In short, I’m old.
But fears for my future no longer daunt me,
guilt bearing ghosts are too tired to haunt me
and friends and family still seem to want me.
So?
Insoluble problems? Outlast them.
No candles? Wait for the dawn.
Tigers? Walk warily past them.
Don’t stir them up; do move on
in this game, never lost, never won.
Jane J. Robinson, 22/7/08
(Next birthday, ninety. Who knows?)
