I'M Getting Old Now

The poem, I'm Getting Old Now begins with the statement: “I'm Getting Old Now” bringing out the poet’s awareness of his advancing age. As one grows old and nears the end, one thinks a great deal about the past, especially the happy times; similarly, the poet thinks a lot about his childhood and in his dreams, he sees his mother as she had been when he was a child growing up in their old house. He dreams that she was standing stock still in the garden, over the hill, behind their house and looking at him while he, as a young boy, was playing amongst the pea vines. The predominant emotion for both of them was that of happiness.
As is possible only in dreams or in old memories, the poet is not sure – perhaps he had not been playing but had been kneeling on the ground picking peas from the vines while his mother stood still beside him holding in her apron the peas he picked or they picked together. She was not working but letting him work, enjoying just being with him and looking at her child with a sense of wonder and happiness. It is a cherished memory of the poet’s and it comes to haunt him in his old age. Her presence as she watched over him as he grew from infancy to childhood to maturity gave him a tremendous sense of security which he reaches for now in his old age as he goes closer to death and the end. It is with nostalgia that he remembers how his mother always said that he grew like “a bad weed”, an affectionate endearment implying not judgement or condemnation but an acceptance of his shortcomings and his fast but not perfect growth.
Returning from his reminisces of his childhood to the present, the poet repeats the line “I'm Getting Old Now” this time expressing the idea that while not happy about growing old, at least he is serene and calm. As death nears, his fear of it diminishes and death does not appear quite the enemy it used to be. The poet gives the idea that he is almost waiting for death, “watching” out for its coming as one awaits the meeting with a long-lost friend one has almost forgotten and as he does so, once more he is transported back to his old memories and dreams of his happy childhood.