Aye, Old Age Poem by James McLain

I hear the world it's youth they applaud as my frail limbs grow cold.
Eye's growing milky, fading light as the sun grows dim,
the priest that once said no more upon your head than you can bear.
The truth of that all the small children now know to ask.
The hollow tree cold dark skies, black and white our stark limbs.
As humans die, alive, myself-what more.
When even I hence then did play at being the whore.
Chasing success, wedding the world, grubbing for money.
Yes, this and that up to my neck and what for?
How ever deep I was in, here I lie, forever more.
To see the world the distant past each to us our prophet's scold.
Ravished eyes to climb such heights and quiet, now I go.
Spending longer nights with shorter days covered by winters snow.
And once we no longer are, we are never younger, old I feel.
Revelations spring hot prisons, pain I'm tired and so.
It's - all - when we can't hear the world applaud,
our last act as it plays out, on this our final stage.
Quiet is death, before I gave it up to the living, I was human too.