Pause For Poetry:
Michael Hawkes /81

Dotage

A poem by Michael Hawkes

If one lives until eighty without severe pain
Not yet overweight and still in the game,
With most of one’s marbles, coherent and sane,
Then despite world affairs one shouldn’t complain.

If one reaches one’s dotage and still has a brain
That hasn’t been addled by war or cocaine,
And can still get around on a light Zimmer frame
Then one can attempt to start over again,
Re-living one’s childhood in castles in Spain,
Re-inventing one’s lifetime, omitting the blame,
So despite the blood spilled one still can’t complain.

If one lives in old age still carrying shame
For all crimes committed in one’s wretched name,
One may well be nodding and needing a cane,
Nodding with knowing and feeling the strain,
But despite such a burden one cannot complain.

With one’s dying breath if one chooses to claim
That life although lengthy was largely in vain,
A tedious dirge with a plodding refrain,
One’s children may choose to not hear one complain.

22/05/24 – Hawkes

Feature image: Vlad Chețan, Pexels

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