I have been recycling this poem for some years now. I suppose that I want to believe that, if I am still publishing it, I must have another year left before the inevitable. I try always to wake up, and, like Clint Eastwood, "don't let the old man in". Keep young at heart.
He was indestructible
and young,
and thought that pain
was for other people.
Death and dying
had no meaning for him,
as he navigated a world
filled with little green plastic soldiers
marching to a beat
only he could hear.
The old man
remembered the little boy.
He knew that the wisdom of youth
was lost in the knowledge of pain,
and living in a forest filled with dying leaves.
They deteriorated on the ground,
like ancient animals,
littering a landscape that became
more desolate over time.
Would the new growth of the forest
find a place in the world?
Would his bones become a part of it?
Old men think of things,
that young boys never do.
Old men wonder whether their young souls
will come back as old souls.
Old men die,
and no one knows if they return. 
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