October 2009 Gazette No. 66, Michael Garrad

We stare at death the moment we are born. So, tell us something we don’t know, you might be thinking.
Even as I write this, I am older. As you read this, you are older.
Every word, every character, every keyboard stroke, ages me. I am older now than when I started writing this editorial and the same for you.
Micro-seconds we cannot buy back, no matter how very much we might yearn for things to be different.
Age is the enemy.
Young and beautiful now, with dreams stretching into infinity - only what we have is finite. Childhood becomes teens, 20s becomes 30s and 40s, middle-age becomes old-age. No escape. We are in life’s trap.
We think we can defy the odds and that nothing will ever change - we will stay as we are but now, all of us, you and me, are older.
Are we wiser? Well, that’s another matter.
These are keystrokes I will never make again, for the words have been typed and I have aged, as you have. The second hand keeps moving on the clock-face and even if we wind it back, we cannot halt time’s movement.
Think about this. But hurry, you are getting older and death is waiting patiently.


Ungiving
Suckling from the one
who cannot give,
For this one has always been barren,
And does not give life,
There is no nurture in warmth,
Just a lure to the mother
who is never there, long gone
if she ever lived,
The suckle without satisfaction,
Desire and need in arid succour,
Flesh that does not yield,
As with fruit withering on vine,
We know it lies there,
Alluring, patient, ungiving.
© Michael Garrad September 2009