This body

- on the whole -

still functions amazingly well,

allowing fifty, yes, seventy

kilometers

of bicycle training

each day,

plus hilarious scree climbs,

though it still shows signs

of times to come,

when it will either slowly decline,

or fall short of everything

in one quick blow

It's inevitable, natural,

and in some distant way... relieving!

It is this notion

that keeps me lingering

beneath the blanket

in our Great Ship Of Dreams,

hours after waking up in the morning,

in the image of a chrysalis,

warm and tight,

birdsong and a slow rain

talking to me

through the crack I left open

in the balcony door,

my thoughts rising

like wild, independent birds of prey

on the thermals of

”still alive and kicking”

and ”not yet especially dead”,

almost fourteen billion years of evolution

handing me down the chain of command

and up the excitements of what's yet to be

I visualise breakfast

with the knowledge that I can break fast

The white wooden semi-circle of a staircase

brought me up here last night,

and it will bring me back down in a while;

an old man

eagerly anticipating the sights

that the James Webb telescope will bring us,

come July,

at the tip of coincidences and reactions

I suddenly find a new, obvious way

to arrange the book stacks

by the bedside,

making ample space

for the coffee mug,

right here,

at the very edge of evolution,

and I rejoice!