Age is but a number

Small strokes on a white sea

It unfurls like crane’s wings

Long graceful and large

Before piercingly crying out

And flying far, far, far away

Age is but a number

Gazed and stared at

By walking calculators

Who screen the the unknown

And ruffle the known

To find some final answer

Age is but a number

Whispered into hollow ears

Never to be spoken out loud

But if one does question

Rounds of spicy retort follow

Unforgiving like the mountains

Age is but a number

Printed on the back of colorful mesh

Rising up and down as shouts do

Wavelengths of mesmerizing sound

Roars of joy when a number scores

But names are forgotten

Age is but a number

Flowing through blue-green strings

Moving faster than blinks

Towards one end or the other

Running, dashing before disappearing

Wispy fragments taken away by the tide

Age is but a number

What tells the lonely and cold world

How long they’ve stood here and watched

How much they’ve seen and experienced

How far they stumbled from the beginning

And how far away the finish line is.