Page 11 - The Gluckman Occasional Number Two

Middle Age

42 - 48 Fortitude
The strong conclude
All fuss and feud.

49 - 55 Rectitude

Does good exclude
Bad attitude?

56 - 62 Servitude

All you’ve accrued
Goes to the brood.

Old Age

63 - 69 Ineptitude

When words elude
Your thoughts are skewed.

70 - 76 Solitude

Yourself seclude
In light subdued.

77 - 83 Decrepitude
What’s that I’ve spewed?
These prunes are stewed!

Note: ancient tradition and modern science agree that we change
significantly every seven years; the former by stages of maturity and
status, the latter by cell regeneration. I have conflated this with the
decanates of astrology, the notion of the grand climacteric and, of
course, the monologue from Shakespeare’s As You Like It.