THE YEARS IN BETWEEN

At first, there was fun and laughter
Youthful exuberance, happy faces
Always smiling from head to toes
Days with so many twists and turns
All bereft of any cares or concerns
It was a life that led me by the nose
Into many new and exciting places
Unlike the times that followed after

Cold days when maturity appeared
Work and career took all my time
Focussing only on the serious stuff
With little opportunity for any fun
As my mid-life crisis had not begun
But that was due soon, sure enough
And no more greasy poles to climb
A mix of youth and age had reared

The pleasure lasted for a year or two
But my senior years were beckoning
Slowing up became an inevitability
Just a cold biting wind of realisation
That I should temper my recreation
With the future prospect of fragility
There would be a sort of reckoning
As death and taxes are always due

Now here I am, trying to remember
Is it really time for my midday meal
The carers seem to be always busy
There’s been no visitors again today
I realise that I’ve been tucked away
My later years are no longer fizzy
It’s not what I think, but how I feel
It’s been three years, this December