More Words

My eyes are getting old.
I cannot see as close up as I used to, just like years ago I already could not see well, further than just before my eyes.
But it’s all right,  since I can no longer travel much, and see so much that real wide world can offer.
Nowadays I see much more without my eyeballs, in my mind’s eye.
A world builds up from the big picture inside me,

My fingers and toes, they have begun to ache at the joints.
I’m beginning to stiffen and numb at my extremities.
But for this I cannot say I am all right, since I need my hands and feet, still, my limbs to move about.
So I resign to moving slower now, more deliberate, more thoughtful in my every action.
Hopefully, by being able to do less than before, I somehow achieve more.

Poverty approaches.
It had always been approaching, but I was younger then, and could fend off the gnawing dread of hunger, by simply sloughing mindlessly away.
That is no longer possible.
With the wisdom of age opens an unsleeping eye, which cannot pretend to be blind to the hypocrisies of society, and the futility of working hard towards a dead end.
But it’s good that I remember the hunger of childhood, of the times when I could not have even the basics of what I truly needed.
This is the lifelong lesson of frugality, it is why bears hibernate in winter to save energy, why the sweet potato fattens its roots for future famine, why those who know the truth sometimes simply have to keep silent.
And that is enough, to feel boundlessly rich amidst the reality of having little.

Look at the skyscrapers still standing defiant of gravity, pointing their fingers against the open skies.
Behold the giants of men and women, rich and powerful, who own, control and live within those skyscrapers.
Feel their hold over so many of us, life and death merely dice rolls in their hands.
When disasters finally wipe out most of us, they alone will survive to create a brave new future, in which the remnants of our descendants will be their new slaves, forever more.

But everything’s going to be all right.
The ruling families have not prevailed throughout history.
The great nations again and again have become archaeological curios.
The invincible are laid low by death, the worthless become the new leaders.
Again and again, the cycles of time turn, and now’s my turn to grow old, to be too weary for the fiery but impotent youth that I once was.
In consolation I earn the humble awareness, of the pointlessness behind so much vanity.
That is a warm enough coat against the growing cold and dimming senses of my later years.

Wake me to walk back up the hills again, back to my modest abode.
For now, I shall naturally doze off within the bustle of the noisy, chaotic day market.