Nowadays everybody wants to be young. So much so that even the young are looking old in an effort to remain young. Its almost like a miasma, silently floating among us. Stopping every now and then to breath its foul spell into our lives, forcing us to run towards the newest thing that is on the shelf, a tall promise to shed years off our skins.
It aught to be lovely to be old,
to be full of peace that comes of deep experience,
and of wrinkled ripe fulfilment.
It aught to be lovely to smile,
that wrinkled smile of completeness,
a smile that follows a life lived undaunted,
a life lived with accepted lies.
If people live without accepting lies,
they would ripen like apples
and be tasteless and rotten in their old age.
I pray and hope and I pray again,
that a young girl would say,
"It must be wonderful to live and grow old,
look at my old mother, how beautiful she looks"
that a youthful boy would think,
"My father is wrinkled for he has faced many weathers,
what a lovely life he has lived"
It indeed aught to be lovely to be old,
to be full of peace that comes of deep experience,
and of wrinkled ripe fulfillment.
