Old Age

The happiness of a parent is to see their kids grow

The reward for this happiness is watch them through

Life’s ups and downs

As maturity conspires with capital to separate 

What would warm the parents’ old age?

It dawns on them that they are all alone.

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The phone rings, it’s the tomato seller

Asking whether the last delivery is depleted

The door bangs, it’s the next-door neighbor

Enquiring whether the electricity man

Has read the meter

The car screeches to a halt, it’s the loans officer

From a local bank, trying to sell the employer’s

Money for interest.

But the old parents’ thoughts are with their progeny

The progeny who have hibernated for two years

The progeny who, with abandon, left parents all alone

The progeny who, intoxicated with city life, forgot the parents’ tears.

Old age resuscitates tender memories

The worries, efforts, joys and disappointments

The old guys revisit them once again

But the nostalgia and the nausea

Of the warmth and the closeness

That children must needs give the old guys

Bear little fruit.

Who would have known, forty five years ago

That the dream of raising a family

Would end up leaving them bereft

Not that the kids are as dead as a dodo

Their absence ignites more worry

The vacuum they left

Slowly

Killing

The old fellows

For once one is gone

The other will surely follow

The agony of old age and memories!