The Elder Thing
Knocking on, totting up the years!
Watching the joints wear thin
the pace slowing and teeth falling out!
Perfectly normal, natural, darlin’
nothing to whinge about.
Our allegedly fortunate generation
is kept going with metal hips,
cornea implants, pacemakers
and false gnashers
plus a shelf full of dire medicaments.
Sweet efforts to endow immortality
or at least, to prolong/avoid/ameliorate
the euphemistic end date.
Yet, all I truly have - anytime,
is this, my attitude -
which is ageless, autonomous, organic.
For all the wizardry of smart appendages
psycho/physio attachments,
the paraphernalia, support networks
genetic dispositions and loving ties,
the preconditions and preconceptions
root in and grow out of that stance:
whether faith, hope, stoicism,
sheer joie de vivre or love of God
- even when there is little joyous left
in the physicality.
Hanging on and in for dear life,
even when no more dear.
Just a process, dearie duck!
On what basis was it assumed
that somehow, bonny health
along with robust well-being
is, was an inalienable right
an unfailing prerequisite
rather than just a throw of the dice
or result of lifelong lapse or labour;
a transient phase, anyway.