The Art of Aging Badly

Yes, there is rust,
an inevitable thing
when you are subjected to storms,
left in the rain and sun,
abandoned and attacked
and left for dead,
or worse,
left to suffer.

What remains are scars, pits,
that wounded red brown testament
to life lived,
if not well, at least with interest,
with a defiance of the odds.

And so you stand,
a bit ugly,
a bit beautiful,
ageing perhaps not well,
not gracefully, but violently,
like art on a summer’s day.

About this poem

Two facts:

• I don’t think about aging a lot. Perhaps I should. I see those around me who are aging with such grace. I admire those folks. I have to figure that they know something I don’t.
• In college, one of my nicknames was “The Ugly Atkins”.

From those two things, this poem. Ain’t inspiration strange?

Tom