Old Age Poem by Mohabeer Beeharry

Old age has come to roost
And time does not seem to have time for me.
I am left behind,
A fated fly caught in the web of perpetually shrinking strength.

Time
Has more dare now
Which I cannot confront
As when this body was young
And thriving.

Through tired and glazed vision
I watch it pass,
Giggling at my helplessness.

This body is old,
The hair hoary
The bones surrendering to a ravaging weakness,
I watch life with a vague and wistful nostalgia
Slipping, slipping
Like grains of sand.

The will that was once my brace
And armour,
Dodders like a child's steps.

There is no going back
To those beautiful days
When I was young
And the sky so blue.

Every little tremor
And pain is fantasied.
A scare.

A scare
That one day very near
That door will open
And I will not come back.

I look back
On life i left behind:

A tinge of wilderness,
Thorns and sores
That I spread for others
And I shudder.
Perhaps I could have left a little more flowers.

Life now laughs back at me
And says they are yours,
Your own legacy
Those thorns and sores
You left behind.

Life has a message for all of us.
We read it differently
And live it differently.
But at the end
The message is the same for all of us.

If you cannot do good to someone,
Spare him the venom of your wicked heart.