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One Step Ahead of a Rapidly Approaching Birthday

October 15, 2005 By

I’m like a backward berry

Unripened on the vine,

For all my friends are fifty

And I’m only forty-nine.

My friends are steeped in wisdom,

Like senators they go,

In the light of fifty candles,

And one on which to grow.

How can I cap their sallies,

Or top their taste in wine?

Matched with the worldly fifties,

What chance has forty-nine?

Behold my old companions,

My playmates and my peers,

Remote on their Olympus

Of half a hundred years!

These grave and reverend seniors,

They call me Little Man,

They pat my head jocosely

And pinch my cheek of tan.

Why must I scuff my loafers

And grin a schoolboy grin?

Is not my waist as ample?

Is not my hair as thin?

When threatened with a rumba,

Do I not seek the bar?

And am I not the father

Of a freshman at Bryn Mawr?

O, wad some pawky power

Gie me a gowden giftie,

I’d like to stop at forty-nine,

But pontificate like fifty.

Ogden Nash: The Calendar-Watchers, or

What’s So Wonderful About Being a Patriarch?

10/15/05 7:41 PM | filed under: main |

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