Give it back

On the wall hung a calendar of the year bygone

I told myself – “New Calendar, time to bring you on”

Time for me, I thought, to get a little verbose

Time for me, to ask Old Calendar to depose.

“Give it all back” I started telling Old Calendar

I really went for the jugular.

“Give me back all the times I had,

The good, interspersed with the bad.

Give me back those jet-black hairs

In whose place that odd silver streak flares.

Give me back the perfect skin on my cheek

That the sun tan made look bleak.”

“Give me back those precious moments

Of which I had cared not to keep counts

The time wasted in empty talk

Or a mere purposeless beach-walk.”

“Those gossips, jealousies, leches, sadness

Empty platitudes, formal courtesies

Vain bravado, foolhardy escapades

Didn’t they all take me closer to my decease?”

“Time for you to pay it, black and blue,

For, I considered you a friend, but time just flew”.

Old Calendar seemed to give me a meaningful smile

This almost made me jumpy and rile.

“Sorry, I do not think I can oblige

For, time always does escape the siege

But my successor has now here with you

Ask him at the end of this year, for all that is due”.