FIFTY SHADES OF GREY

for the fiftieth anniversary of the Sydney University graduating medical class of 1966

Lined up, we wait the starter’s gun,

we’ve come from the extremities  –

the fingers and toes – of the

places to which we’ve moved over decades,

awkward, grinning – maybe

we should not be here?                 

none tight in Lycra – hmm –

tattooed by age – sun spotted,

wobbly jowls and bellies, sagging cellulite,

yellow capped and crowned teeth,

titanium hips and knees, bypasses and stents,

hearing aids, surgical scars and missing bits,

pills for depression, hypertension, impotence

and the obligatory statin  –

we know the tricks of acquisition

and privileged consumption

of scarce resources for interventions

to keep old engines running.

Starter’s gun, but what about

the race we’ve run?

Who won?

How could we tell

and does it matter now?

What’s the nature of this race?

There should be a director

to define our destination,

explain our social purpose,

how fast we are to run

when to wave to grandkids,

how to vote, what to sing,

how to deal with super,

that sort of thing.

Looking down the track

toward its end

it seems quite short.

There’s a simplicity about the landform  –

fewer buildings, less traffic,

quieter people  –

through cataracts,

with dodgy maculae,

we see an Arthur Boyd horizon

almost empty, one

painted in his later years –

blue, blurred, and just possibly benign.