Seventy And Eight

Seventy and eight:
You’ve set aside some vanity.
What was it but priority?
And some priorities have changed.
Acceptance of some disappearance;
Change of balance, skin that’s run the distance,
Re-arrangement of the substances inherent -
                                                       or you thought..

When you’re nearing birthdays
Each and every twelfth ****** month,
You shun
The cant if you’re observant.
‘Happy Birthday’ not so plain.
This has that… and that’s a pain.
Marriages have come and gone,
You’ve eaten everything on offer.
Gone the need to empty coffer entertaining.

Suffering more neutralized;
So many friends and kin have died.
You’ve channeled drives
That used to thrive on pleasure.

With a birthday coming up
You’re going down each second’s unit
So immeasurably tiny you can’t count it.

Here is where it gets didactic:
Birthdays coming up – don’t hope but have it.
As for vanity, retract it.
That’s it.

Seventy & Eight 10.28.2012/revised 8.27.2017
Birthday Book; Circling Round Vanities II; Birth, Death & In Between II;
Arlene Corwin