{"id":3429,"date":"2016-12-21T21:35:15","date_gmt":"2016-12-21T21:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.writingsinrhyme.com\/?p=3429"},"modified":"2016-12-21T23:05:05","modified_gmt":"2016-12-21T23:05:05","slug":"staring-down-forty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writingsinrhyme.com\/index.php\/staring-down-forty\/","title":{"rendered":"Staring Down Forty"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Forty years from now, there wont be a word about us”

~ John Carty (dad)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is but three hours from now
\nThough few wrinkles adorn the brow
\nThe silver hair gives it away
\nThat middle age has come to stay.<\/p>\n

No more a youth though in the mind
\nThat I think the same I think I find
\nAs I climb yet another of lifes ladders rung
\nWho who thinks as so he still is young.<\/p>\n

Lots has gone in this past for decades
\nThe Soviet Unions May Day parades
\nTwo Germanys have become one
\nYugoslavia through wars now gone.<\/p>\n

The conflict in our isle looked like it would never cease
\nThe North knows now an uneasy peace
\nThe house on which my parents toiled
\nIs sold and for sale: destroyed and spoiled.<\/p>\n

The work of a common handyman
\nNot good enough: the fashion began
\nSo all for new was ripped asunder
\nDestruction the only work achieved: like pirates plunder.<\/p>\n

The flowers my mother tended as I was a child
\nFight with the weeds who together grow wild
\nNo more wed by me on hot summers day
\nBoth parents pushing up daisies beneath the clay.<\/p>\n

I, at forty, so bereaved
\nLook back on ambitions broken, more achieved
\nRouse from my musings with a heavy heart
\nHope theres truth in the saying forty is lifes start.<\/p>\n

As much more time to go and maybe less
\n– It startles me, I must confess!!! –
\nI too will be gone for all lifes fuss:
\nForty years from now there wont be a word about us!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Forty years from now, there wont be a word about us” ~ John Carty (dad) It is but three hours from now Though few wrinkles adorn the brow The silver hair gives it away That middle age has come to stay. No more a youth though in the mind That …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290,7,840],"tags":[1160,10,3402,3404,3405,2017,3403],"class_list":["post-3429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biography","category-life","category-passage-of-time","tag-age","tag-aging","tag-facing-down-forty","tag-life-begins-at-40","tag-mid-life","tag-mid-life-crisis","tag-the-big-four-zero","column","twocol"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7EI4f-Tj","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3479,"url":"https:\/\/writingsinrhyme.com\/index.php\/i-have-seen-both-sides-of-life\/","url_meta":{"origin":3429,"position":0},"title":"I Have Seen Both Sides of Life","author":"Tom\u00e1s \u00d3 C\u00e1rthaigh","date":"11th January 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Another of my reflective poems, as I look back on life, more serious than \"Once Upon a Time in Ballinasloe\": more along the lines of \"Portrait of the Poet as a Not So Young Man\"... these poems get easier to write as we get older! I have seen both sides\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life"","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/writingsinrhyme.com\/index.php\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"As a child in Banagher - I never did make it in the soccer world!!!","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.writingsinrhyme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Banagher.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.writingsinrhyme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Banagher.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.writingsinrhyme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Banagher.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.writingsinrhyme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Banagher.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4565,"url":"https:\/\/writingsinrhyme.com\/index.php\/there-wont-be-a-word-about-us\/","url_meta":{"origin":3429,"position":1},"title":"There Wont Be A Word About Us","author":"Tom\u00e1s \u00d3 C\u00e1rthaigh","date":"29th October 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Mam and Dad had a wistful saying: \"Forty years from now, there wont be a word about us...\" rueing the passing of life and death... We always think it wont be so, but maybe it is truer than we care to admit and is true of us all...","rel":"","context":"In "Death"","block_context":{"text":"Death","link":"https:\/\/writingsinrhyme.com\/index.php\/category\/death\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Mam and dad in the last photo we have of them together in 2006.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.writingsinrhyme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/dadnmam.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":324,"url":"https:\/\/writingsinrhyme.com\/index.php\/innocence-died-a-thousandth-death\/","url_meta":{"origin":3429,"position":2},"title":"Innocence Died a Thousandth Death","author":"Tom\u00e1s \u00d3 C\u00e1rthaigh","date":"17th August 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"She was the first of the age of innocence, The hundredth overall, Daily her father grieving Came to talk to her on the wall His little darling, dead with a rubber bullet Symtom of those troubled times Imperial British oppression, Yet more British war crimes. Innocence died a death that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Civil Rights"","block_context":{"text":"Civil Rights","link":"https:\/\/writingsinrhyme.com\/index.php\/category\/civil-rights\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Painting of the famous Death of Innocence mural in Derry, Northern Ireland, featuring Annette McGavigan who was shot by a British soldier in 1971","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/writingsinrhyme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/The-Death-of-Innocence-Mural.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/writingsinrhyme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/The-Death-of-Innocence-Mural.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/writingsinrhyme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/The-Death-of-Innocence-Mural.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/writingsinrhyme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/The-Death-of-Innocence-Mural.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/writingsinrhyme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/The-Death-of-Innocence-Mural.jpg?resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2929,"url":"https:\/\/writingsinrhyme.com\/index.php\/pretty-smiles-and-pigtails\/","url_meta":{"origin":3429,"position":3},"title":"Pretty Smiles and Pigtails – The Mary Boyle Mystery","author":"Tom\u00e1s \u00d3 C\u00e1rthaigh","date":"5th July 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Watching Gemma O'Doherty's documentary on the missing child Mary Boyle nearly forty years ago is chilling, with interference at a political level with policing, and a suspect free to prey since on other vunerable young children. 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