Signs Of Greater Age (26)

Being glad you are as old,

if not older, than the politicians

who claim to serve your populous.

You have now lived long enough

to see how their more outre ideas,

are retreads with no thread in them

-long before they have to admit this.

And you can quote when the same

presentations failed last time.

Finding that for all your memory
of public life reaches back quite well,
in the present-when in shops
you find have to say how much
you tender for the goods
you have purchased as much
as the cashier has to say
what the goods cost, for you both
to be sure that the shop is honest.