Worrying

is like crumpling paper;

it reveals you

to faces in the dark

Old age

comes

with long horizons

and a curving Earth;

many ways to die,

pens hovering

over death certificates,

eager to hit the surface

to make it official,

give it legality

and a medical explanation,

allowing the corpse

its final procedure;

a handling with care

of the thing

which was once

a theoretical and rather abstract entity

we love to label “person”;

now pure waste,

to be incinerated

or put in the ground as compost

A new month

is an uncertainty

This time her name is May,

see if she lasts

Young people's skeletons

give a lot of leverage,

while next step for an oldtimer

is an innocence

seldom contemplated

Cannot deny

harbouring some end thoughts,

although perhaps unfair

to a life holding up very well,

but fellow fighters fall all around,

or fall into silence,

not much more to be said,

the circles on the water

moving inwards

while the universe

accelerates its expansion;

dark matters!

A foreteller on Connaught Circle

in Delhi

in December 1972

grabbed my hand,

giving me a forced prophecy:

82 years!

- But that place in time

seems farther and farther away

the closer I approach:
When you get older,

time speeds up

but life slows down