Retirement Poem by Ajit Das

The closing hour finally chimes;
you step out on the street.
A new reality stares
at your face: retirement.

You feel you're free:
no busy schedule, no pressure.
You try to settle down
in the last phase of life.

First, it stretches out
like a holiday - a long holiday,
but gradually you realize
an emptiness creeping up.

As if something within you
has been turned off;
the major part defining
your identity seems shut out.

It's sailing into sunset; yet gleams
a newer world with softer hue,
where your real self never retires;
in the fading twilight it still matters.