1

Minimal hair loss, classically white,
Afflicted with matutinal shakes
And condemned to meditate at night
On death. Sleepless and afraid, he takes
A pill prescribed to shoo away anxiety,

And turns to memory in the hope to kill
The thoughts of nothingness to come,
Which only brings him to another hill
Unscalable, despite the fife and drum
Bands psalming to indoctrinate.

But now it's daytime, brightly blue, post snow
And yet o signal of the heat to follow.
   The expat stokes his fiery rant
Against the trumpers and their cant
And reaps the plaudits of his friends.

2

Examining his life from aged heights
He Remembers his discomfort faced
With multiplying and dividing fractions;
He would rather read about the actions
   Of King Arthur and his knights.

But numbers and stories together create delights;
While frights that can beset us, are sometimes chased
Away by reason or by new distractions,
Ignoring or subduing political factions,
   Trusting only the mind's lights.

This facile self discounts the negatives
Till a computer saps his confidence
By denying access to the internet.
The worst is yet to come: he phones to get
Assistance from the number given and spends
A pointless afternoon changing passwords
That don't work. After giving up,
He calls his techie son;
Ten minutes later all is done!