Half a Century

Half a Century Fifty is not old if you are a tree and the oak tree holds acorns already planted in waiting for the wheel of life to continue in sentient beings on time weathered paths one step at a time I used to be the little child with budding flowers spreading branches wings for leaves and restless roots pruned with giant secateurs of what the tempest’s norms held in store for growth Youth no opprobrium no graceless ignominy’s dishonour but a rebellious tentative and necessary premise for fulfilment and still today mere age is no achievement and tree rings not a triumph At times the reaper has ignored the oak tree fruit and had a go with ropes and chainsaw poisoned water nails in bark and acid rain and yet this seasoned sapling stands its tiny ground in time It is a tree because of branches and without them it is just a stake some of them withered some are supple like the child I used to be and somewhere in boughs and twiglets lies the youth of ageing life