When You Age 

No longer can I mount the heights

nor spelunk damp, dark caves.

I can no longer slalom ski

nor jump wild tanker’s waves.

 

What happened to the strength and skill

that fill my reveries?

From whence came all the phobias

that weakened so my knees?

Phobias were not there before.

I never even thought of them

until I passed through my youth’s door.

 

As now I reach a ripened age,

all feats rest  in the past,

and it becomes my hardest chore

to value deeds there cast.

But I’m aware the task I bear

each day from dawn to dark

is realize heroic acts

must be as patriarch.