Photo Credit: Will Pennington. Lake Moxie. The Forks, Maine.

Inspired by a writer friend’s post about her 50’s being the cruelest decade – loss of old friends to sickness, Alzheimer’s, aging poorly, giving up, and to my own recent loss of two friends from my childhood church, one 12 years younger than I, one 12 years older. Time knows no Master. Time was, is, and always will be immovable.

two, four, six, eight
when will I disintegrate
aging, dying, hand of fate
why’d my parents procreate

eeny, meeny, miney, moe
how many years have I to go
spin the dial (spin it slow)
is there enou’ for my own show

twenty, forty, sixty, eighty
more than halfway there already
running hither complicating
lacking time to make one ready

here, there, and everywhere
life’s too short at least be fair
riding, rowing, climbing stair
running, walking, gulping air

my trousers fit me e’en loose
I’m slim and trim to my caboose
I smile much and play the goose
but cheating death? ahh, there is no use

ticktock ticktock will come the knock
time’s key won’t fumble with that old lock
death as solemn as the Rock
of ages ere they born from solid stock

creak and squeak my bones rattle
grey and sag you cannot tattle
time and tide they cannot prattle
so many years we’re given a’tall

how do I count thee, one, two, three
love’s goodbyes, now, constantly
I barely knew ye, and you me
what mortal time lacks — sympathy

if I should die while in my sleep
in heaven then my soul will keep
there to gather what I’ve reaped
time’s bitter end comes not cheap