The Pitfalls Of Youth & The Fallacious Self-Deception Of Thinking To Remain Forever Young

Youth is that wonderful state of Life's mind that allow one to confidently believe that they know it all, and live in seeming denial that they shall ever die. Ain't Life grand!

The Pitfalls Of Youth

& The Fallacious Self-Deception

Of Thinking To Remain Forever Young

Written By Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn de Graham

Copyright © 2023 Marvin Thomas Cox

DBA: Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn de Graham

All Rights Reserved

The years go flying by,

in standing still before our eyes,

until that moment they become a blur,

that was you or I, him or her,

now grown old and withered,

entering Life's wintry blizzard.

While comprehension of old age

may elude those in the grips of Youth

-- thinking that Life goes on forever,

in false claim of knowing, not grasping,

that we all shall die one day, of sooner

than we seek to meet upon any street,

for we fail to see that Life is a dead end.

So it is easier to pretend that death

shall always take another, someone else,

other than you or I, and so we do lie

to ourselves in behest's jest of thinking

we are special, we are different, immune

to that final doom known as Death.

But, to those of us who've lived long,

long enough to shake off the deception,

-- that beautiful deception that is Youth! --

the end is ever near, outcome crystal clear,

in clarity wherein our breath shall cease,

and the thumping of our hearts, its beating,

as our eyes glaze over into far away reruns,

of all those yesterdays of fond memories,

love, romance, and treasured relationships

now fading away as the curtain is drawn,

the Final Act of the play of our lives,

is over, as our cranium's faithful hard-drive

(storage space for all that we once were)

flickers out as electrical impulses fade

into ever tinier and tinier, flickering, sparks

that were you and I, before that moment, when -- we died ...

(Written August 7^th, 2023)

Author's Note

My Step-Dad was a rounder, a drinker, fist fighter from hell, as well as a Veteran of The Korean Conflict that saw him literally go through hell to return home to never quite be the same inside, ever again. On his death bed, he confided in me, "I don't know how to do this ... It's always been somebody else." His words I didn't grasp, because I was still in the grips of Youth just as he had been in during his time of Youth. But, brother, I am beginning to understand now ...

Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn de Graham

Reviews

[Ken Simm.]

This again I can feel. Going through my memories in my writing today I think that whilst not welcoming the reaper, I shant be thinking you should'nt be coming yet.
Really well written piece that I think perhaps you have to be a certain age to understand fully.

[Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn de Graham]

Thanks Ken ... And I full agree ... Years ago I had a customer who had two plaques on his office wall: The first said, "Old age and treachery shall overcome youth and skill." ... The other said; " When a man is old enough to realize that he really doesn't know it all ... He usually has a son, who thinks he does."

[Ken e Bujold]

Grand poem M. Reading it reminded me of that wise idiom: life is often wasted on youth. Then as you so rightly show, without that waste there would be no wisdom to hand along in our grey days.

ken

[Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn de Graham]

Thanks, Ken ...

I have lost my natural and Step parents, and so on, and have lost all of my best and closest friends, save one who continues as my best friend today ... Then, with the loss of my wife, it does seem clearer than at any time of my younger days none of us shall be here forever ...