The three ages of man

Poetry or prose? ( or neither?)
Three ages of man

The boy is waiting for his seventeenth birthday, looking into the unknown future towards his age of man, not knowing in which land it lies with its infinite branching possibilities.
He does not know that his future is fixed, just waiting for him to follow that one critical path.
He does not know that the arrow of time does not move. It is a pointer to show when he is and time flows around him to coalesce behind to form his passed times and to add pages to the history book of his life.
He is unsure about everything. He knows nothing, but he knows that he knows everything.
How can it be otherwise in a teenaging boy?


His age is but a twentieth of a millennium, the mountain is four million times older, a Variscan G G G G...Great Grandfather.
He clawed his way up the foothills of the corporate mountain range until he reached the sunlit uplands of calm acceptance, no more promotion, just the casual fending off of upstart steers who would dislodge him from his upland summer pasture.
He waits for his pension, happy not to strive but to graze efficiently with minimum effort until he leaves the threshing floor at the five of each day to return to his dependable family.


The man is old, but not old as the mountain knows old, the mountain that he can see with his one good, though rheumy, eye. A rheum with a view.
His back is bent in a way that only a wind resisting tree knows and his skin is barked like that same tree, the events of many years embossed on the lignin.
His walking stick is cut from that very oak; unfair as he does not care to prop up the supplicating sapling that bows before the lazy wind.
Is there enough wood groan yet to form his coffin so that he can dye happily in the scarlet satin lining?

I especially like the last stanza here, Richard, although would probably not go with the word play on groan and dye as, for me, it undermines the lovely timbre of the poem. See what I did there? It wasn't intentional!!!

Hi Amanda
Thanks for your comments. Yes, I did see what you did there, unintentionally of course, but I guess you wood say that woodn't you?

It is not poetry. Over thirty five syllables in the first line so I think this falls into euphonic prose. I think it could become a good poem though. Rheum with a view? Groan/Dye ... Hmmm... the slightly jokey ending throws away the gravitas of what came before - like your not confident that it will stand alone - it will - Critique written as someone who knows you R and loves your writing so take in the spirit meant - cheers

Thanks Mark
The problem is that I can never see a pun without jumping aboard and poling down the river on it. To me that is one of the joys of the english language - who was it who said something like, 'that word means whatever I want it to mean, no more and no less'. I do realise that they must get very wearisome to read so I will try harder to avoid them.