RETIREMENT

Your bones they creak a little, your muscles ache you know
The urgency that once was life has become a smidgen slow.
Your body sends a message to your still boyish mind,
That it has left those crazy heady youthful days behind.

You sometimes sit and ponder on the things you used to do,
Those great excursions with the lads, you still make now, but few.
And the football fields you trod upon south plus north and east,
You recall the post match sing-along, you recall the post match feast.

The rock and roll,whose crazy beat to which you cut your rug,
Seems just a distant memory, like your vanished jitterbug.
The energy you once discharged on life's great coaster ride,
Is almost gone as now you seek the peace of your fireside.

But you have the dog, whose pleading eyes says she wants her daily walk,
Where you meet those retirees who sometimes stop and talk
And you gaze at them and wonder, do I look as old as him,
Are the lines around my eyes so stark, has my sturdy neck grown thin.

When I lie in bed and wonder on a day not yet begun
As the morn has not yet yielded the brightness of the sun,
Will I venture from this house this day, if yes where will I go
And that call of judgement to be made, will I play golf or no.

There seems to be no difference in each day as it goes past
Tomorrow will equate today and today the same as last.
So what I long for is concern, life's concentrating force,
As I used to have each morning on the day's uncertain course.

Should I do aught about it at the age of sixty five
To show that I am still of use, to show that I'm alive
At the risk of sounding boastful, at the risk of sounding vain,
Go stick retirement up your shirt, I'm going to start again.