This is my attempt to recreate a poem that was written for my grandmother Baba’s 70th birthday by her great horseback riding pal and drinking buddy Maggie Grant. Maggie was a journalist and editor of the “women’s section” of the Globe and Mail in the 1950s and 1960s. She also covered the Toronto society news before Zina Cherry’s time there.
The spirit of the poem and the last line are Maggie Grant’s, the rest I recreated as best I could, as the original copy has been lost.
When I was young and in my prime,
I used to do it all the time.
But as I age I must confess,
These days I do it less and less.
And at this point I reminisce,
On bygone thrills and youthful bliss.
Those sights and sounds, and scents so dear,
In coming years may disappear.
The plunging stops and lunging starts,
So punishing to private parts…
Don’t get me wrong. I speak, of course,
Of all those years I rode a horse.