Aging (a Triolet)

[Torkelburger]

Aging

I’m now too old to climb a tree.
I’d fall and break a bone.
And not as agile as I used to be,
I’m now too old to climb a tree.
The years have passed too fast for me.
I wish I hadn’t grown.
I’m now too old to climb a tree.
I’d fall and break a bone.

[Tiger the Lion]

Hey Torkel. Nice to see you back and experimenting with different forms again. How many is that now?
I know this is in fun, but I just wanted to point out one thing. When working within meter and form there is a tendency to pad a piece with filler words in order to maintain the meter. We all do it, but the shorter the piece, the more obvious the filler words become. Because a triolet is essentially only 5 lines, the filler words are magnified as they get repeated. The poem is fine but could be much tighter with some tweaking. I'll highlight below.

Aging

I’m now too old to climb a tree.
I’d fall and break a bone.
And not as agile as I used to be,
I’m now too old to climb a tree.
The years have passed too fast for me.
I wish I hadn’t grown.
I’m now too old to climb a tree.
I’d fall and break a bone.

[Torkelburger]

Thanks, Tiger! I lost count on how many forms I've tried. Still trying to find which ones speak to me and which ones don't. I probably have another dozen or more to try out, give or take a few. Maybe I'll post my thoughts someday on them in a discussion thread. Yes, I was trying to be cognizant of filler words. I decided to let "And" slide, but I totally missed "now". Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I'll see if I can come up with a solution at some point.

[Torkelburger]

I think I put in the padded words because the example poem I saw when I researched the form used them. Upon further research, I see that there is not a strict meter to the form, just the rhyme scheme/line order and number of lines. So I think this should work:

Aging

I'm too old to climb a tree.
I’d fall and break a bone.
Not as agile as I used to be,
I’m too old to climb a tree.
The years have passed too fast for me.
I wish I hadn’t grown.
I’m too old to climb a tree.
I’d fall and break a bone.