Is it just me who, as i get older
seems to be getting more scared and smaller?
I'd swear i used to be much, much bolder,
quicker of thinking and walking taller
but nowadays my fire's more a smoulder

than a lusty, raging conflagration;
whereas once i met life with a swagger
and cut a wide swathe across the nation
the cold now pierces me like a dagger
and what once seemed but an aggravation

today might leave me a quivering mouse,
whiskers vibrating in nervous alarm
and conjuring dragons outside my house,
just waiting to pounce and inflict great harm.
But what can i do? I haven't much choice

and the world is such a dangerous place;
and besides, this house, well it's quite secure
and no-one can see my cowardly face,
and something's in the air, of that i'm sure,
a fragility in the human race,

like wildness, wanton self-preservation
as though awaiting our apocalypse
but one that's more self-assassination
than deus ex machina; and my hips
aren't all they used to be, inflammation

cripples my joints and my lungs wheeze like, like...
Is it just me, who, as i get older
gets ever more cautious before i strike,
likely to turn a cold, callous shoulder
on any attempts my passions to spike,

unwilling to venture far from my door,
increasingly spurning the great unknown,
adventurous less than ever before,
preferring the ground where once i'd have flown
or wanting to stay this side of the shore?

Is it? Am i the only scared one here?
Come forward and let your truth be bold:
assure me the cold is nothing to fear;
tell me it's just that we're all getting old,
that life has yet warmth to both charm and cheer.

MP 211223