My Poetry. Growing old Gracefully.

You remember when you were just a lad?
The things you did felt truly, completely brave;
Swinging from the highest, wildest tree,
Six inches from an early, grassy grave.
Back then, you could run so incredibly fast,
Play ball forever and a long, full day;
Sleep would come only when it absolutely had to,
And your hair was still naturally dark, not gray.

They claim the new fifty is really just forty
In this modern millennium's health-conscious light,
But sometimes that equation just doesn't work out—
You're not always at your premium, agile height.
Your weary bones now begin to sharply creak, your neck gets sore,
And simply bending down is an unexpected task;
You try your very best to live much younger,
While instinctively reaching for the imaginary oxygen mask!

To stay generally healthy, you need to be careful;
You might just deal your poor body a crippling blow,
Like simply trying to trim those hard, old nails
On your now unreachable, stubbornly big toe.
When you shower and glance down at your changing figure,
It's decidedly not quite as it used to be;
Those once solid muscles are now rather flimsy,
And you struggle much more clearly to properly see.

Some people manage to grow old gracefully,
Just calmly accepting the process as it comes.
Growing old isn't always necessarily a drawback,
Or just a receding line of unhappy mouth gums.
But when it comes to your deep, vast memory,
The important things you can still recall are quite clear:
The cherished good things that happened in your life,
You will faithfully hold so very dear.