In 1969 there was a bumper sticker going around that said,
“Never trust anyone over 30”.
I understood it perfectly,
I didn’t think that I’d ever have to worry about becoming one of
Not the way I was living my life those days..
Dreams of adventuring the country
on the back of a motorcycle with my best buddy
He found heroin and a shy quiet southern girl
with dark eyes and hair and sad secrets kept to herself.
I found more smoke and dope
and beautiful young women with whom I slipped lustfully
in the wee hours of darkened bars.
Morning sunlight washed away the desperate lonely night
as I crept away lonely time and time again.
out of business with the last betrayal.
kept rollin, rolling along.
Mourning my life and abandoned dreams
and discovered I was thirty.
And the next morning I was thirty-five.
Rebelling against authority
ever since my original trust in life
was beaten out of me by events and people
I discovered I no longer trusted
of searching for my lost joy
in all the wrong places outside myself,
I find it hard to keep going.
At this age of 69 I think
perhaps I have outlived my life
by more than twice the age of trust.
Everything important seems to be behind me:
the book still not written..
The coffee still tastes wonderful as always
but it no longer lifts my spirit or enthuses me.
instead I sit writing these words,
then reading the words others have written,
waiting for my back and neck and shoulders and knees to loosen
so I can move less painfully,
so I can get just a glimpse of the powerful young body
before the wrecking ball of time
and over the line between thirty-five and sixty-nine.
I had cataract surgery last year.
I finally got those hearings aids.
My ears are artificially young again.
Maybe there is something can be done
for the big arthritic toe that groans,
This body has become a tattered old suit
that will rot back into soil