The closing hour finally chimes;
you step out on the street.
A new reality stares
at your face: retirement.
You feel you're free:
no deadlines, no pressure.
You try to settle down
in the last phase of life.
First, it stretches out
like a holiday—a long holiday,
but gradually you realise
an emptiness creeping up.
As if something within you
has been turned off;
the major part defining
your identity seems shut out.
It's sailing into sunset; yet gleams
a newer world with softer hue,
where your real self never retires.
In the fading twilight it still matters.
A.K. Das