They say (and by the way, exactly who is this unseen, omniscient, ubiquitous collective known only as "They?") that it is not how old you are but how old you feel that matters.  Fair enough.  I am approximately eight weeks shy of my 52nd birthday, and most of the time I don't feel a day over 65.    

     This first draft of this poem was written on the evening of August 18, 2007.  I was rocking on my front porch, recovering from an annual and very physical training and re-certification day for a program called Safe Crisis Management.  As I was hydrating with a few adult beverages, an antique Classic Car drove by.  The rest, as "they" say,...



Old

 

Driving an old car down the old highway

(referred to as Old Bloom Road), the old man

must feel young again.  His car washed and waxed,

jet black as if recently off the line,

its age betrayed only by Classic Plates,

runs silently, certain it still belongs

among the newer models.

                                          Then it's gone,

passed quickly, and I can't help but wonder

as I sit in the cooling August dusk

debating if summer has been too dry

to build a fire, if my own plates betray

forty-six years, or worse, how old I feel.