What I’ll Do Till I’m Eighty

By Sedfrey A. Ordoñez

They say life starts at forty.  Not really.  It starts, to many people like justice secretary Ordoñez, at eighty. As life span gets longer and longer, people will ask, "What will I do when I'm eighty?  

Dedicated to those who will turn eighty in a few years or so. Facing the sunset of life is perhaps the most rewarding, the most beautiful, the most fulfilling stage of man's brief sojourn on earth. And it is the most important because it bridges our being mortal with meeting our Creator, indeed a singular gift of God to Man.      

 This is a memorable photograph of some of our own literary giants: (left to right) the late poet and author of Life Cycles, Sedfrey Ordoñez (Justice Secretary and permanent representative to the United Nations); doyen of Philippine contemporary poetry Ophelia A Dimalanta, Hortencia Santos Sankore, Larry Francisco, and the late national artist and poet Jose Villa. Like Secretary Ordoñez, the late Dean Dimalanta and Jose Villa left invaluable lessons in life to the younger generations.  

Today the first of September

In this year of our Lord

Nineteen Hundred Ninety-One

I am clear-minded seventy

And ten years from now

As tumultuous twentieth century

Slip away like a leaf in the wind

I will be, God bless me, eighty.

I will not count the coming years nor be

Worried by calendars thrown away

Because I will be very busy –

Not engrossed in counting my blessings

For these are blazed in the brain

But work figuring the ways

Of loving humanity,

Striving to be human,

Making peace and avoiding war.

When I reach eighty

You and I will date our letters

Two thousand one A.D.

But have you ever pondered

What is a mere two thousand years

Beside the life of a universe?

Merely simply contemplating

The enormity of the tasks ahead

Urges me to start right now

And fill my last ten years

With music

With the wisdom,

With the daring,

With the vision

Of the Master.

The late Sedfrey Ordoñez served as Secretary of Justice, Human Rights Commissioner and permanent Philippine Representative to the United Nations.  I have had the rare opportunity of meeting him as a writer and friend.