By Tony DeLorger © 2014

How differently I see myself,
as age plunders all my youth,
stripping bare that pristine me all shiny and new,
lashed by time relentless.

And as I fall from my own grace,
the drawn and saggy covering that no mar s me,
reveals what life has eroded in experience,
and what blemishes remain in verification.

I'm not sure if ever I can accept this travesty,
this disemboweling from the outside in,
this rearranging of what remains,
of a body once accepted as adequate.

Age is an insidious affliction,
the slow and taunting demise of life, cell by cell,
and the gentle failing of mechanics,
pain and stiffness, and the slipping of faculty, edging away.

The irony remains, what now I know,
could have saved my impetuous youth,
driven me to great heights,
had I the old head that now sits upon my shoulders.

How cruel life, to have delivered that truth,
and now too old to advantage it,
and live that dream life that only experience could have proffered,
had it ensued when I needed it.

But in the end, that is me in the mirror,
despite my denial and complaining,
and life has been full, for that is what confronts me,
and it's not over yet, for the heart knows not of age,
and feels every bit of life's play, with the beauty of understanding it.