Those Creaking Years Before Us

Those Creaking Years Before Us

When we reach
our middle
years and seek
what creaks
before us, those
laborious elder
days, those we
fear; we live
with greater
caution. How
time flew from
birth to age of ten!
We think so now,
but, then, we
thought that
time was slow,
living free from
thoughts of death.
Another ten
found us twenty,
still unaware of
those future
creaking years
before us. Here
we lived within a
sanctuary free from
any thought
of those creaking
years before us. Now
we see how fleeting
those days were
and what rises
near us are years
far fewer than
those that have
gone before. And
time has sped
toward those
creaking years before
us. While life has been
exquisite, if we
dawdle in complaint
we have regrets that
we have missed it.
Too shortly our
bodies wither and
grow old, heading
to'ard our grave,
forlorn, dark and cold.
We ride our days
in an old creaking
ship destined to
land where we
have navigated
through our time
as we saw fit.
Our decades have
been spent, no
time left for us
to turn round, relive
or repent. With
philosophic angst
we question how
we bide this time,
time that will hasten,
faster, faster, to'ard
those creaking years
before us. Soon, soon
we can no longer
hide beneath the bed
we've made. Since so
little will remain
before us, our
eyes will turn
about to see where
we have been, only
after we reach those
creaking years before
us. Will our ship
carry burdens of
bitterness, wasted
years, poorly lived
moments on
churning waters
of dis-awareness?
Who, then, will
hear the stamping
of our feet as
we cry in anguish
at what we think
unfairness? We
who launch our
creaking ship
to'ard those creaking
years before us
choose the cargo
that we'll carry.
May we choose well
those traits, dispositions
and propensities that
on our face we
will forever marry.
Live! Live! Live
life as a song
well sung and a
tale well told. So
when the petals
fall and we have
grown old and
reached those creaking
years before us, the
journey etched upon
our face will tell
a story proud with
honor, one that
leaves a gift for
others who can
walk that line we've
left to trace, as we
lived so well those
creaking years
before us.

The Pleasures of Being Alone and Never Lonely

"The man who has no refuge in himself, who lives, so to speak, in his front rooms, in the outer whirlwind of things and opinions, is not properly a personality at all. He floats with the current, who does not guide himself according to higher principles, who has no ideal, no convictions-such a man is a mere article of furniture-a thing moved, instead of a living and moving being- an echo, not a voice. The man who has no inner life is the slave of his surroundings, as the barometer is the obedient servant of the air at rest, and the weathercock the humble servant of the air in motion."
Henri Frederic Amiel