After retirement
The years become a blur
Decades pass
If you’re so lucky as to live
You learn to look down
You learn to use the handrails
And the grab bars
Defying the dreaded fall
That could well end it all

Clothes that you consider new
Are really ten years old
Friends you always thought you
Would see on a yearly basis
Slip away or die outright
You have to put some very good dogs down
And are reluctant to get any others
Until some lovable stray wanders in
And you just can’t chase it away
Dogs that chose you are always the best one’s

The march towards death
Becomes dull and droning
As a drum beat
As white noise from the freeway
The years become a blur
The age you once considered old
Is the age you now are
You wonder how many years you have left
And you ponder if you
Really want to endure their hardships

The years become a blur
Your dream life becomes discombobulated
Your high school class stops having reunions
And you know why
Nothing seems all that important anymore
Doctors and their medications rule you life
You wonder what will finally do you in
Whatever that is it seems it is
In no hurry to arrive

Aches and pains become more debilitating
This friend has cancer
That friend has heart failure
You wonder if you’re merely old
Or if you’re really old
Baselines and touchstones become meaningless
You want to live on for the sake of
Those that need you and your grandchildren
Until you realize that they no longer do
Then you want to live on because you fear death

The years become a blur

John C. Krieg is a retired landscape architect and land planner who formerly practiced in Arizona, California, and Nevada. He is also retired as an International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) certified arborist and currently holds seven active categories of California state contracting licenses, including the highest category of Class A General Engineering.

He has written a college textbook entitled Desert Landscape Architecture (1999, CRC Press). John has had pieces published in A Gathering of the Tribes, Clark Street Review, Conceit, Palm Springs Life, and Pegasus.