Many years back, I loved adventure poetry enough to put many to memory. Not just for me, but often to quote them to kids and staff. I would also do my best to be the language of the poem. A good example is my telling of Gunga Din. I love that story of a water carrier who died doing his job bringing water and ammunition to the British troops fighting a battle in India. He was truly a hero, and I am sure the story is real, as written by Rudyard Kipling.
Remember “The Shooting of Dan McGrew”? Another classic I love to quote with the feelings of the bar and the cold outside. There are so many of these, and most gave me a way of looking at the world. It may be why I, as a kid and teenager, thought I would become a merchant mariner. This would be my way of seeing the world. Of course, serendipity became a huge fact in my life. I became what events dictated. Here, I try my hand at some original poetry. I hope you like it.
POETRY & AGING:
As I sit at my computer thinking of rhymes,
I’m about to write some poetry, I feel it’s time.
I know that I want to say something about aging, but I don’t know yet.
I’m confident I’ll find what I need to say; on this, you can bet.
I love to use words that say a lot.
Which allows me to write one-page essays and waste words, not.
So, age is my subject, now what do I say?
I have written and said in a talk that “old age sucks.” I believe it to this day.
What good is there as I wilt away and watch friends die?
And my turn is coming, yet I fear not or ask why.
Life has been a wonderful trip for Lenette and I.
Our cups run over with memories and stuff.
So many wonderful friends, and there are never enough.
When they visit, what a blessing they bring.
Stories and cookies, memories and things.
Our past has been so full, sometimes planned and sometimes not.
But we never looked back; our journey never stopped.
We pushed the limits in most everything we did.
Not knowing what our efforts and the future hid.
But that’s life, and it is not meant to be wasted.
Our doings and goings in our book of life, maybe pasted?
LOOKING BACK:
Time and events do their thing, and I am the ball they hit.
Taken back and forth, I went wherever I might fit.
If I thought about where events and people are taking me.
I did not resist events and let the winds of life push me out to sea.
It was there and with strangers that I began to discover who I was.
I learned at an early age I do not fear people or things.
I faced and learned the power of nature and all that it brings.
I try to do my best in whatever I do and see/hear life as a song that sings.
Sy
