Thresholds

I could not wait until I turned five

Why, I’d be the happiest kid alive

Wait, six is better – when that is made

I’ll be old enough to attend first grade

Nothing much happened when I turned seven

Nine or ten, or even eleven

But if I just make it to thirteen

I’ll be a teenager – no longer a tween

Eighteen join the Army, carry a gun

Drink and vote at twenty-one

Thirty a real man, no longer a kid

They’ll take me serious – but nobody did

Black balloons at my birthday party

Over the hill when I turned forty

I might have retired at sixty-five

I didn’t, had to work to survive

Sixty-nine’s a good number, a very good year

But it’s going away in a few hours I fear

On the threshold of seventy- no longer a pup

Is this the year when I finally grow up?