May Day ! May Day !! May Day !!!

Spring has morphed into Fall ; Summer is but a question mark ; Winter  is figured to be frigid, deep down, to the bone. I write, anymore, like a pessimist when for years I've always been an optimist.

It could be my age since I've pushed past eighty-one and every chill, no matter the season, runs right up my spine. But lately, all chills emanate from my hands to somewhere else in my body like a chain reaction.

My hands were once my strong suit, they could do most anything I asked of them. Essentially, my occupation was that resembling most farmers, hand tools were just arm extensions with lifting heavy and grasping tight commonplace.

Now I look at my knurled, ghostlike hands deeply wrinkled and permanently disfigured and wonder where my youthful hands  have gone ? I guess, their vitality went years ago, left in the ground they turned over or on the implements that required rock hard hands to control.

Aging seems a process which adds up spent years and displays these years on the surface of bodies displayed in retirement homes becoming more numerous each year.

Ronald C Downie