how the years go sailing past! they go by in a blink!
one day i pause and grasp the thought, t'is later than i think.

i bury friends and family and start to realize,
i’m mortal after all, my friend ... and everybody dies.

i take an inventory of life's sorrows and it's joys
rememb'ring most the happy times and all my little "toys"

i think of goals accomplished and my failures just as well.
i think of things i can't unsay and doubts i cannot quell.

mortality, that bane of man, seems but another's fate
and miss my own life's pageantry, with naught but empty plate.

how strange my life should end one day.  the final scene must play.
i take each breath for granted and don't cherish every day.

so... "happy birthday to myself!
i’m fifty-two anon !
what happened to my days of youth!?  i missed them.  now they're gone!