My advice would be (and who listens to advice?) , do it while you can as one never knows when your health may let you down. I've been active all of my life and going off with my bike and tent for a month or two is what I do and a vital part of who I am. That said it gets harder all the time as your body begins to break down. Forgive the blackness but I wrote this after my last catastrophe prevented me from leaving on a long-planned tour this summer.
Leave me my anger
Leave me my anger
leave me that at least.
I used to love the lark’s first song
and could cry at the beauty of all
that it promised.
Now I watch it rise with swooping steps
but nothing do I hear.
Leave me my anger.
I watched my knees rise and fall
brown and sweat-polished.
Pushing hard I would crest the hill
to dive down and down
my heart lifting in my breast.
For that moment I was a King.
Now my knees are grudging
each movement demanding some painful penance
some consequence.
Leave me my anger.
My hands were clever once
cunning in ways too numerous to count.
But now… with no allegiance to former shape
they strive hard to become claw-like and
useless.
Leave me my anger.
There was a time I stood with legs apart
voiding my bladder like other men.
Was this too prideful?
Such a basic thing… but this too
was taken.
Leave me my anger.
My mind was never great
but in its time was adequate to the task.
When pressed it could be subtle and knowing.
Now it sends me like some clown
on these repeated journeys.
Looking for something—something
But what?… I cannot remember.
Leave me my anger.
Where are those promised virtues
that was to come with age ?
Patience… Tolerance… Acceptance of one’s fate.
Where is that promised benignity?
That would be some sort of recompense.
I have seen little of them.
Leave me my anger.
So if anything is to be left
Anything at all—then
Leave me my anger
Leave me that
at least.
George White 11/06/5