On Getting Old

When bones do creak and fingers freeze

And movements cease and eyesight leaves

When memory old trumps memory new

When I am old and slow to do

Old friends have gone, save but a few

And they are frail and cannot chew

When time it speeds along a track

I scarce have time to pause, look back

On actions past, too late to rue

On what I was, was not to do

Then I will know that time has come

To tie loose ends and make a plan

For I am come to where we go

And no more harking to and fro

I strode decisively along?

Alas I was more often wrong

And what I did and didn’t do

Is but the past, a fading brew

Of good and bad and in-between

Too late, fear bocht, the past is past

So soon, I’ll lay down on my bed

And go where one goes when one’s dead.