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It has taken time to realise that these small changes
are incremental signals of approaching decline,
not terrifying, just inevitable and not to be ignored.
The precursor was cancer, so discrete it was almost secret,
but careful doses of poisons delayed that creeping act.
Childhood’s lurking chicken pox mutated to shingles
erupting unnoticed around a vulnerable right eye,
only discovered by chance by a trio of doctors
who gazed and conferred like witches in Macbeth
before banishing it back to limbo, with suitable lotions.
The eight-mile walks have just shrunk now to two
as ancient damage to the right knee ramps up pain
and the once straight leg takes on a new shape,
causing a twist in the stance with resultant back ache.
Uphill walking still is easy, downhill walking a farce.
Corrugations in flesh mark where the muscles were.
Skin’s aging brown marks slowly spread their message
the smooth ones artistic, the coarse ones more sadistic.
I have come to accept this old body’s increasing displays,
strangely grateful to these warnings on the limit of my days.
Already, I have lost the Spring call of Chiff-chaffs
and can no longer hear the joyful screams of Swifts.
