Pack Of Cards Poem by gershon hepner

When I was only twenty-eight
I said to old age: “You must wait! ”
It didn’t, because time and tide
don’t wait for anyone. I sighed
when I was twenty-eight but now
I look back and I wonder how
I then survived another forty
despite the fact that I was naughty,
for now, of course, I’ve reached the date
when I am old and sixty-eight,
far older than I hoped to be
when I was twenty-eight. To be
or not to be is very weighty,
but let it wait until I'm eighty.
Till then I will enjoy myself
by counting yearly up to twelve,
while every year becomes a card
within a pack for Anna, Bard.

Written to celebrate Anna Russell’s twenty-eighth birthday, anticipating my eightieth. Anna tells me she is actually twenty-seven, but I have added a year by means of my medical/poetic license.

5/26/06