Weathering

The scent of antiseptic sterility,
The hard steel exam table, morgue cold
To the touch, left me feeling none too bold.
It tends to shrivel one's vitality,
This search for rogue cells that can kill a man.
The refrain, "my body, it's been a good friend,
But I won't need it, when I reach the end,"
From Cat Steven's Tea for the Tillerman
Drifts through my mind; the scan is reality,
A jolt, a reminder of one's mortality.

Like a stray dog the years dog our footsteps,
Impervious to our kicks and curses.
Youth cocksure becomes age that rehearses
Humble prayers and turns to sacred texts
To prepare for an audience with death.
The inexorable onslaught of time
Testifies as mortality's witness
As endurance ebbs to shortness of breath.
As if being wracked for some crime unknown
Strong limbs with arthritic stiffness groan

Volcanic passion thrust forth an island
Of sea-defying smugness, basalt proud.
Time-weathered now, a reef on which gulls crowd.
Presaging a water-shrouded shoal of sand.
If we could just choose to halt time's ravage
Of our island at some youthful time of desire,
Our proud landmark outcrop that waves savage
Could rebuff them to harmless spray and aspire
to an eternity.  But perish we must.
Time's relentless waves beat us into dust
Just as islands to sand, and iron to rust.