Old age is not as I imagined it.

Country walks by sylvan streams

Throwing sticks for my Labrador

to chase and retrieve.

Slippers by an open fire

Bouncing my grandson on bony knees.

Time in which to luxuriate,

Before my poem’s final

Full stop.

 

Instead, age exacts agonies,

Diminishing time, money, and sense,

Brings relatives with their problems

Minus solutions. As the dark shadows

Of approaching dissolution

Gather furtively around my door.

 

No one cares. Not really.

People mouth platitudes,

But they can’t commit-

They have troubles of their own.                                           

 

We are left, thus, as dubious flowers.

Grown from the seeds

Our former selves have sown.

Dubious flowers, wafting in the hinterland,

Between blooming and decay.