Age

This is where I recognise I am going extinct,
And that I hadn't been ugly – or not as I thought.
Peaks and rough edges and caverns now look indistinct,
Flattened to downs and valleys that ages have wrought.

From the Caucasian mountains to Pennines reduced.
Isn't it funny to feel now as old as the hills?
What did I ever expect? Let us get introduced,
My unfamiliar self, now surviving on pills.

How do you like them, and do you still take your tea black,
Now that you cannot drink coffee, or whisky or gin?
We've lived a life long enough, so let's cut us some slack,
Stranger that stares without at the stranger within.

This was your arm, this your leg, say now, wasn't it bliss
Hiking those mountain paths for as long as we did?
Now that we cannot, it's something we'll learn not to miss,
We have survived, no self-pity now, heaven forbid.

Illness and age. But I've seen them, grand-dames of my past
Living their best life of Riley around the table.
Here is one looking at me from the mirror at last,
One I'd avoided as long as I ever was able.

Is she so awful? The ones I recall had a blast.
We can drink tea and talk books, and play cards through the night,
Listen to music as long as our hearing lasts,
Draw, and translate, and compose, while we still have the sight.

We can reorder our bookshelves by colour or size,
We can revisit our every edition of Dante,
Knit us some chainmail and stitch us a hat with a visor,
Find us a hobby-horse that we can call Rocinante.

We can wear purple as we go world-putting-to-rights,
Chain ourselves to a fence and yell “Down with this shit!”
We can refuse to go gentle into that good night,
We can keep fighting so long as we're quarter-way fit.

There was a time when I wanted to grow up like that,
Look even uglier, so I could scare the crowd
Come Halloween, in my pointy shoes and my hat,
Hoping my curses are chilling, my cackle is loud.

Why would I want to look pretty, when this is such fun,
Even though we'll be invisible now to healthcare,
Statesmen, employers. Now let me embrace you as one,
We can no longer go back, so we have to go there.

Now I have grown into all my collegiate elders,
Those who have Trinity Dublin on their degrees,
There is a hall and a garden that always remembers –
Let's be remembered by all of its flowers and trees.

Let's be remembered by how we had climbed on those roofs,
When we had strength and a voice we could sing with up there,
Move through the air like we moved when we still had the moves,
In our sleep, when we dream, when we fly through the air.

Years have shrunk our world from a stage to a room,
Circle of friends – to the voices we hear in our head,
Roomfuls of our conversations have shrunk to a Zoom,
Illness is shrinking our world from a room to a bed.

Come here, stranger, I know in my heart you are me,
Come here, Beethoven, composing his Ninth in a rage,
Rage at the sound that fades, at the face in the mirror.
Here, my friend, I am you now, let's welcome our age.