Yadu

Old age looks good
on you, but would I
forbid my own ageing
or bemoan time
I’d blown?
Virtue to accept you are past your prime.

A sharp, bright thing
as fresh as spring vines
coiling around
a frayed crown, loose
but bound
on an idol of ancestral Zeus.

Sovereign, how can
you ask an apt
young man to go
through life slow? To
forego life’s
joys and your wilted soul rescue?

What can bring comfort in autumn as summer ends?