he liked to say “I’m an old man”
he knew he had 20 more years … maybe more but each year now was more unlikely
and accepting that allowed him to understand the word he used “old”
he liked that liked to think that and say it out loud sometimes
in many ways he still felt young
his mind and his attitude were as flexible and comfortable as they’d ever been more so actually
but the years though unreal in his dreams he believed in them like the hands on the atomic clock which reset itself to a reality that commerce and politics and sometimes he marched to
he believed in the years and in their reality beyond himself
and he measured himself and his future by them
and he liked to say
“I’m an old man”