ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

OLD WAYS OF LIFE ARE NEARLY GONE.


Children play and run
but my legs creak, my back groans.
Old bones don't make fun.

I see the blue hills
through multi-focal glasses.
I can't climb the hills.


I scan the obits;
I know names that appear there.
Old friends have moved on.

It's a 'B' this getting old at times Neville - my backs doing a bit of groaning as well mate.

Terry

Cheer up Neville - I am sure there is life in the old dog yet and getting old isn't for sissies as we all know. I can sympathise with Terry and others whose bodies are creaking and groaning - I had an ultrasound this morning and needed help to get up off the table - my back locked up on me but the creaks and groans are still better than the alternative I am sure you all agree

So true! On the negative side, we've attended the funerals of three close friends in the last month. On the positive side, we still manage to laugh at least once a day!

I like the poem Neville. Very succinct.

Cheers
Shelley

Thanks for the replies.

Terry, We know what it is like to be young, the youngsters don't know what it is like to be old.

Maureen. Sorry to hear you are having ultrasounds. My last scan turned up infected kidney stone and the next day I ended up in emergency theatre. Two operations in three weeks and one more op to go. Knock me on the head.

Shelley. My understanding is that the essence of poetry is images. I used three rhyming Haiku-like sequences to try and make succinct images of effects of aging. Haiku is good practice to learn how to compress language into vivid images. Telling is prose, showing is poetry.

Well put, Neville! Show, don't tell - it is a good motto for us.

Thanks Shelly, I heard a wonderful line from Les Murray " Prose is.....story, discussion, significance, Poetry is... presence "