Half My Life

I was seven

when my mortality 

first occurred to me.

Lying in the dark after bedtime,

I envisioned my funeral

with no one graveside,

because my parents were old,

and my siblings were old,

and when they inevitably died before me,

I would be alone.

Now I have lived six times that span,

more than half my life by the statisticians' count,

and only now do I see the value of time

rapidly running through the glass.

This is how regrets are born,

but I refuse them.

I have lived sometimes well,

and feel saddened I lived a mostly 

dull life -

not that at times it didn't shine.

Any harm I have done is repaid

in stumbles, and failures, and 

humbling reprisals.

There is a kind of balance now,

in place of joy,

and sometimes in the night 

I awaken, anxious

about the end.

I am no tragic figure;

no hero save in games I play.

I can still chew my food

and locomote,

at times even run.

The continents slide slowly

over the skin of the earth,

and the planets make their way 

in their orbits,

and the sun that crossed its zenith

is still warm on my shoulders,

and the road ahead is still long,

if predictably paved and graded.

So forward.