Health

When I was young, I often heard,
“What matters more than wealth
Is something you can’t much control:
In other words, your health.”

The grown-ups were obsessed with it:
Their doctors, scans, and pills;
To me it felt so far away,
Like grade school shelter drills.

Of course the possibility
Was there for either scene:
A nuclear attack
Or some disease with quarantine.

Yet each scenario could not
Attach itself to me.
Youth encourages the chance
To frolic, worry-free.

But years have passed and now I know
That illness, sly and stealthy,
Can sneak up and invade us
Even though we’re feeling healthy.

I wish I could go back in time
And place myself among
Those ignorant of what I heard
Way back when I was young...