I have no sympathy for that devil of a performer
who looks like a scarecrow flapping in the wind.
Instead I envy him
as he bounces off the stage
as if it were a trampoline.

We are contemporaries,
age mates, Mick and I
and the electrifying music, the familiar old songs,
his enthusiastic waving and hooting
are like bread and butter to me.

But why the letdown?
I can live with the beer smell.
It's the fragrance I miss
which once spread like wildfire
from one glowing joint to another.

Why the heartache when comfort awaits us?
No more heaving of storm shutters,
no more sweat while mowing the lawn,
and no shortness of breath
since there won't be stairs.

But I will miss the knobbed rosebush, planted forty years ago
which still bears the occasional blossom.
I will miss the gravesite molehills covering cats, dogs, birds, even a turtle.
I will miss the bathroom where my water broke with each birthing.
And I will miss the ceiling in our bedroom where smiling stars twinkle down.

The years are sealed and secured in boxes.
One last stroll through house and garden.
I stub my toe on the broken-down sandbox
and something catches my eye. A wishbone?
When I kneel down, I spot an earth-worn wooden building block,
then spool back time
to when a child (which one?) sat creating her world,
one that was timeless, one that could never be moved.