Naturally,

since my escape from the womb,

I have become older.

I mature.

I become wiser.

Sometimes, stupid.

Stronger.

Learn to learn.

Learn to love.

Evolve from hunger for Mothers nipple

too lustful for my loves breasts.

To understand what actions and decisions

are for my own, best sake

and how those actions have consequences

and how the often arbitrary inflictions of those consequences

ripple through the years

in joy and catastrophe,

unpredictable at their inception.

But not yet have I become

old.

There is a line there

I have not crossed.

For “old” is the acceptance of the invitation

to the overwhelming process of diminishment.

The gradual surrendering of the ability and opportunity

to rectify the results of my misconceptions, malefactions and sins

and those pesky consequences.

“Old”

is when the mind surrenders to the inevitable,

sometimes long after the body has.

Begins to cherish rest

rather than embarking on its next quest,

failing to pass its next test

and not caring.

Coming to the realization

that I am but a guest

here in this sliver of eternity

and not caring.

Accepting that I am wearing

all the stars in my crown that will ever be gathered,

they, having already been welded to the gold.

And that the ripples have far outdistanced

their causal beginnings,

far beyond the third or forth generation.

And to accepting the slow dimming of the light.

No!

I have not –

yet-

crossed that line!