BEASTLY TALES

FARMER’S SOLILOQUY

“I am old,” said farmer Wesley, “old as can be.”
“My hair is quite grey, as you can see.”
“My eyes are not as bright, no they are not.”
“As they once use to be, detail they’d spot.”
“My joints I can limber, become more agile.”
“If I am more lithe, it sure makes me smile.”
“If I arise, faster than I should, sap goes fizzy,”
“Probably not, but blood flow does make my dizzy.”
“When I go out to muck out the pig sty,”
“I run out of Oomph!, I’m not quite sure why.”
“Smoking is out. Drink I do not.”
“Well, not much anyway, that’s the plot.”
“I watch my weight, eat a small repast.”
“When one is old, one doesn’t lose weight fast.”

“So, since most of the right things I am doing,”
“Since wild and erratic behaviour I’m not pursuing.”
“Why is it that I’m not in better shape?”
“Why is it that my arms do dangle like an ape?”
“And why, given this ape-like similarity,”
“Am I quite incapable of climbing a tree?”
“I’m given to taking a daily walk,”
“I’m reluctant to indulge in silly small talk.”
“Yes, I’m old,” farmer Wesley said, yet again.
“I feel so old, both in body and brain.”
“I’m well advanced in age, not near the beginning”
“Characteristics of the elderly are not at all winning.”
“In the old times, since so long ago,”
“I enjoyed rude health, went with the flow.”

“So how old am I? That’s a leading question.”
“I am old enough to eat, and get indigestion.”
“I’m placid in nature, don’t get in a rage.”
“Folk sometimes say: He died at a great age,”
“But, arguably, there is no GREAT age for dying.”
“Just the very though of it brings forth sighing.”
“Frankly, I plan to live to one hundred years of age,”
“This is my goal,” said farmer Wesley, “Written on life’s page.”
“To prolong life, if I may be so bold”
“Yes, to live to be a Century old”
“Or, failing that, die in the attempt,”
“Which would, of course, make me exempt!”