Reflections on Aging, Solitude, and the Search for Meaning
As we age and abide alone
Without parents and siblings, friends or mates
Oh the disappointing revelation lately realized!
That intellectual ambition, literary attainments…
Our sufferings, cannot soothe, nor our passions quench
Alas! The shocking reality
From our pious eyes so carefully hidden?
Great were the efforts made
To stage these themes before our minds’ eyes
Then absorbed in the quest for intellectual wealth
And the race for spiritual purity
That the bliss of a feminine affection eternally wed
Before our green eyes uninvitingly lay
As the distant years, silently drew nigh
Ever wondered why men of grey hairs
Descending the hill of life towards the western sun
Though bent down with age, seek a young maiden to warm their beds?
Even the most virile and exuberant youth
His manly pride to secure and his maid to please
Falls a willing captive to an aphrodisiac of sorts
The Earth’s valiant warriors and most accomplished statesmen
Before whom nations trembled and walls tumbled
Themselves fell vanquished before their unbridled passions
How can the priests and nuns of Rome escape?
Whose perfunctory oath has them perpetually bound
Under the fetters of eternal celibacy
These sublime paragons erstwhile buried?
To stealthily unfold, as the years gently unrolled
From our sapping labours we gratefully turn
With aching bones and muscles that sharply burn
Drooping home on blistered soles and suffocating toes
On the threshold knob our trembling hands feebly strive for a hold
To impatiently retire in peaceful repose our collapsing frames
Oh for a caring hand, our failing beings to timely meet!
And our craving bowels to generously fill
The pant of our lonely hearts, yearning for palms tendered by love
Which by our helpless sides, shall assiduously wait
To skillfully soothe our burning frames into blissful sleep
Rekindling our flickering strength and waning hopes
Dim the glory of our intellectual trophies that indifferently lie
And vapourise our colossal dreams that only silently stare
As the lonely years sorrowfully wrings out the joy of a ‘companioned’ life
