‘Retire Meant?’

by Mike Finn

Retirement was:

A word for something a long way off,
More of a noun than a verb, 
An outcome, not an action

When work was my here and now,
A verb always present and tense,
I had no time to consider what retire meant.

Retirement defines:

An act of withdrawal,
A voluntary seclusion.
An ending of who I was when I worked.

Like sloughing off a skin
Severing a limb,
Sliding to a full stop.

Retirement is:

A destination I’ve reached,
A stop I’ve gotten off at,
With too much baggage and no map.

But I’m neither lost nor alone.
My wife knew what retire meant,
Time together to cook and read and travel.

Retirement will be:

A signpost for a road not taken
A label that I’ve peeled off
An object in my rearview mirror.

I haven’t been retired,
Been put out to pasture,
I’ve been released into the wild.