Category: Aging

Buffeted ceaselessly pillar to post,
Weary and tired, and more hopeless than most,
Longing for death, like the cold for a cure–
He’ll outlive his own generation, be sure!

by Ray Romine Sunday, November 4, 1945

The Doctor’s office, plush and chrome,
Brings back the feel of my old home;
In fact, I’m clear back in my teens,
From the dates on all the magazines.

by Ray Romine Tuesday, June 15, 1954

Where is the bewildered chorus
The crickets used to sing?
Where is the eye of Arcturus high
That ushered in the spring?
And where is the throb in a robin’s throat
That boasted of his love?
These things live still for him who will
Give lethargy a shove.

But they are not spontaneous,
And pleasure not itself?
They but exist as a whirling mist
On a just-beyond-reach shelf?
Unless we take ourselves in hand
And shake the cobwebs from us,
We give old age another page
To let it overcome us.

by Ray Romine Friday, September 17, 1948

The Hallowe’en season is with us once more
With its witches and ghosts and hobgoblins galore;
I s’pose that they’re just as they were as of yore,
But they don’t look the same as they uster!

For when we were kids just the sounds in the trees,
Like the hoot of an owl or a whisper of breeze
‘Round Hallowe’en time produced knocks in our knees,
But they don’t sound the same as they uster!

Yes, Hallowe’en then was a big time of year,
And we waited for weeks til it finally drew near;
Sweet cider in those days meant Hallowe’en cheer,
But it don’t taste the same as it uster!

And the same thing is true of a whole lot of things:
All life has no kick like the thrill that youth brings,
For all things around us as life onward wings
Just don’t look the same as they uster!

by Ray Romine Tuesday, September 4, 1934

When everything is going well
I’m young, I’m dashing, I’m rake-hell.
But when skies gray and tempests rage–
That is when I feel my age!

by Ray Romine Sunday, June 24, 1951

In retrospect it is revealed
The things that youth demanded
Resemble very little those
The man finds himself handed.
Where lies the fault? I cannot say,
And I ought not be preaching
Who, at the undecided age,
Still wastes some time in reaching.

by Ray Romine Wednesday, December 6, 1950

As gingerly I thread my way
Past icy slicks and spots
Of packed-down snow, I watch the play
Of careless running tots,
And know regret that with our strife
We all somehow outrun
Youth, that fleeting time of life
When ice and snow meant fun.

by Ray Romine Saturday, December 9, 1950

That life is too swift can’t be denied.
If I could ever master
The gentle art, I vow that I’d
Slow up a little faster.

by Ray Romine Tuesday, June 16, 1953

Every man has his personal bogey:
One factor he faces with dread.
My own?–If I AM an Old Fogey*
Don’t say it–just think it instead.

*especially the “Old” variety

by Ray Romine Friday, September 20, 1946

He pushed himself along the walk and muttered:
“I wisht I had a two-wheeled bike like Bill’s.”
While Bill grew tired of pedalling and uttered,
“Some day I’ll have a car Just like Aunt Lil’s .”

Aunt Lil , blasé, dreams of a trip to Haiti–
I wonder what I’ll wish for when I’m eighty?

by Ray Romine Thursday, March 23, 1950