Today

Ran into someone at the market the other day
who looked at me in amazement.
"Do you still exist?
Had the urge to turn around.
We got to talking.
The man had me in the sixties
seen in the theater.
He once emigrated
but returned to the Netherlands
to be buried in Utrecht in due course.

Told him
That besides genetic luck,
singing
has probably ensured
that I still have my heart and soul
able to play some one hundred and forty performances a year.
Of course it creaks here and there
and I don't jump so high
as at seventy-eight years old.

So yes sir
I am still here.
And if it is up to me
still
longer yet.

Herman van Veen