Staring Down Forty

Musings as I turn 40!!!

Forty years ago I was bollick naked in Portniuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe, crying my eyes out, wasn't able to talk and was doubly incontinent.

"That must have been some party" you say... The poor nurses...

Well, it wasn't my fault... I was just born!!!

In other news, the house I grew up in is for sale again. Gutted on the inside the new owners made it worse trying to make it better as per the fashions and passions of the Celtic Tiger years...

Both of these thoughts were in my head as I wrote this melancholic verse for my birthday in about another hour!!!

FACING DOWN FORTY

“Forty years from now, there wont be a word about us”

~ John Carty (dad)

t is but three hours from now
Though few wrinkles adorn the brow
The silver hair gives it away
That middle age has come to stay.

No more a youth though in the mind
That I think the same I think I find
As I climb yet another of lifes ladders rung
Who who thinks as so he still is young.

Lots has gone in this past for decades
The Soviet Unions May Day parades
Two Germanys have become one
Yugoslavia through wars now gone.

The conflict in our isle looked like it would never cease
The North knows now an uneasy peace
The house on which my parents toiled
Is sold and for sale: destroyed and spoiled.

The work of a common handyman
Not good enough: the fashion began
So all for new was ripped asunder
Destruction the only work achieved: like pirates plunder.

The flowers my mother tended as I was a child
Fight with the weeds who together grow wild
No more wed by me on hot summers day
Both parents pushing up daisies beneath the clay.

I, at forty, so bereaved
Look back on ambitions broken, more achieved
Rouse from my musings with a heavy heart
Hope theres truth in the saying forty is lifes start.

As much more time to go and maybe less
�" It startles me, I must confess!!! �"
I too will be gone for all lifes fuss:
Forty years from now there wont be a word about us!

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

i vaguely remember turning 40...and having many of these same feelings...at 66 i now look back and forward at the same time...not too many regrets...knowing i landed in a reasonably good place after all the experience...

experience that taught me i did the best i could...made the most of what chances i had when it was possible.

but something that really rings with me in this poem...is how things around me have changed...and it makes me a bit nervous about being around in another 20 years.

but at any rate...thanks for this poem...i really felt it...and i hope you have a good birthday...

j.

[Tomás Ó Cárthaigh]

Thanks for the comment Jacob... hope you had a good Christmas!

[Great Aunt Astri]

You have told your story, and you have made it rhyme .... well done. I think there are many plusses in getting older. For a start you can learn from the mistakes you made. Then,your emotions are much more user-friendly. And there's all your life ahead.. you never stop learning!

[Tony Jordan]

Hi Tomas,nice to meet you.
I love the craic and the poignancy mix here Tomas - it's a special age indeed - does life begin, I dont know but you'll never get into those baby gro's this time round if it does.

[An owl on the moon]

It is a joy to experience your words and thoughts, reflecting on your humble beginnings, naked for the world to see, and to sense your destiny in the world awakening with your first cry. Thankful you were put on this earth, my friend. :)

[Tomás Ó Cárthaigh]

Well 8 months later i'm as clueless about being forty as i was 40 years ago about being alive!!! :-)

[An owl on the moon]

Haha! Well, may each new day only bring you a little closer to you. :)