Appetite for Life

A tribute to Ruby on her 100th birthday.

When you’re having fun at twenty-one,
And everything’s going right,
It’s your appetite, appetite,
Your appetite for life.

If you’re fancy free at thirty-three,
And you dance and dance all night,
It’s your appetite, appetite,
Your appetite for life.

Forty-four brings a loud encore
For everything in sight.
It’s that appetite, appetite,
That appetite for life.

When fifty-five finds that same old drive
Is there, and just as bright,
What can it be but that appetite
That appetite for life.

Sixty-six and you’re up to tricks,
With not a wrinkle there to blight
Your appetite, appetite,
Your appetite for life.

At seventy-seven you’re in seventh heaven,
And all is sheer delight,
It has to be that old appetite,
That appetite for life.

Comes eighty-eight and you estimate
You should put away your kite,
But that old appetite continues to bite,
That appetite for life.

You think, my friend, it will never end,
Well we hope that we all might
Enjoy the same in life’s long game
As your appetite, appetite,
Your appetite for life.

Gerry Marfleet