PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

As I’ve grown a little older…when I stop to look around

I see life moves as fast as it always has…but it’s me who has slowed down.

As I climb the ladder of life…each year reaching a new rung…

I’m slowed by knees and eyes and ears 

that don’t work as well as they did when I was young.

“You can’t run on me anymore!”

That’s what my knees would say if my knees could talk.

So instead of running from place to place…I’ve been forced to walk.

And while I’m walking 

because my eyes don’t see as clearly as they used to see

I’m forced to walk a little slower and sometimes stop…

to see what I want to see. 

Because my hearing over the years has started to fade away

I have to look more people in the eye and listen more carefully

to what they have to say.

But…since I have to walk more slowly, 

and look and listen more carefully to the world around me…

I find I have the time to enjoy a little more 

the people and the beauty that surrounds me.

Which makes me wonder about all the beauty I might have missed…

all the wonder

all the fun…

back when I had eyes and ears that worked much better…

atop knees on which I’d run.

There are many signs I have grown older…that make me wonder…how

in the blink of an eye…

All the time I’ve been alive…all the years that have slipped by.

When I look into a mirror…sometimes…I feel chagrin…

What hair I have left has turned to gray…and there are wrinkles on my skin.

Sometimes my body aches…from my head down to my toes…

Are my ears supposed to be this big?

And don’t get me started on my nose!

But I don’t need a mirror to see how quickly time has flown.

All I have to do is look at my children…and grandchildren  

and see how much they’ve grown.

As I see the men and women they’ve become…

and are becoming

Across my face a smile spreads…

That smooths out every wrinkle and softens every gray hair on my head.

A smile that extends out to my ears…and changes the shape of my nose…

that soothes any ache I might be feeling…from my head down to my toes.

I know I’m growing older…of this I have no doubt….

but growing older has never been something I worry too much about….

Because, no matter how many years have passed….

No matter how many swings the pendulum of time has swung….

My children and my grandchildren have always found a way

to make me feel young.