Be not angry with aging’s signs;
They’re but mile posts of life.
The fine, quaint lettering, interpret not with sting,
Nor quail from those neat lines
Etched by time’s trusty knife.
God in benevolent love,
Loving the yet unborn race,
(Imagine loving unknown, babies and adults full-grown;
Only that God-like feeling from above
Enables man to care for an exposed face!)
God could love, lovingly He did,
What only God would do;
He made man so outward signs would show
When life began to reach its “mid,”
The Creator thus hinted what He knew.
He could’ve made man and his mate,
To stay lifelong young,
To be in the prime all the time,
With no warnings of the date,
When death’s tolling had begun.
Instead, He planned that gradually,
With force, man’s body would signal
An ultimate truth – the passing of youth.
Signs an individual would see,
Inward, outward, very hard to make null.
God knew we would rush madly apace,
Be engrossed in buying and selling,
Be coming and going, “to-ing and fro-ing.”
So in wisdom, He planned the face,
As our clock for time-telling.
Be glad then for lines that planted
The crow’s feet and smile’s relief.
Your knowing brow signals the NOW,
Of life’s evening rays so well slanted,
And knowing – there need not be grief. -eab, 7/80
written in Friendsville, Tennessee
Separate-Holy 