I finished my 71st year today.
What an inconsequential number.
Now,
70!
Well, there you’ve reached
an auspicious milestone!
And that’s something to write about.
But, 71?
It’s just one more step
into what Everest’s sherpas call
The Dead Zone,
where the view is mighty
but the eyes are closed
and what the climber
was
is grander
than what he
will be
soon enough,
when he stumbles,
forever,
into that great dark hole,
looming now,
over his aging soul.
Poems by Ken 