When We Grow Old (Two Old Friends) Poem by Eric Zinbabora Batung

Downtown they tour,
Seeing sights and surveying signs.
Hand in hand they each support the other.
These streets they know so well.
Years and yearnings,
Energy and earnings,
Have transformed the woodlands into a concrete jungle.

Young and strong they too have been.
Running among the woods happily they once have.
Less busy were the streets then.
Early to bed, early to rise was the practice then.
Good and bad days too they have embraced.

Watching it grow and gather crowd is all there is now.
Looking back at all that they've been through,
Pondering past pleasures and pains.
Wishing they could be young and strong again;
Race the fields,
Dance in the discotheques,
Chase butterfiles,
Pace about in the streets
Teasing young staring boys.

Here they are now;
Old and fragile.
Yet they tease; 'when we grow old.'
They have but almost completed
The full circumference of life's circle.
They will soon be there.
Dead and done.