Not Dead Yet

Mortality lingers in the accumulating aches
of week long labour,
the left shoulder stiffens and the knees
accommodate begrudgingly,
and the sun baked pate slips out of time
into a two lane stupour that
allows comings and goings as the mind shifts gears
with the sudden memory
of water and blood sugar and rejuvenation.

And I know full well that I am a relatively easy-paced self
free from Third World
wage slavery and earlier era employer indifference,
allowed to care whether
I live or die on any given day, but I'm there anyway,
on the continuum of
fardel-bearing sweating and grunting under a weary life
enlivened by the joys
of being, the pleasure of the plate and the singing cells
of caress and kiss and
linger and the wiser growing realizations that impetuosity's
consequences can be
tamed or left wild, like an English Garden, an Eden of knowing
and wonder run riot,
stilled by reflection and the body's strength remaining,
the proof in the aches,
a measurement of existence stretched to the limits
then breezed cool
in the heat of a hard day:
the utter gladness of rest and the sensation
of vigour's return.