Graying — Summary

Dave BontaContemplative

I accept gray hair, in which I am finding my father and my work: this is the last lost ice, all my accounts.

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Dave Bonta's "Graying" is a very short poem about the quiet moment of accepting that you are getting older. The speaker doesn't fight his gray hair. He says he accepts it, and then he notices what it brings with it: his father and his work. The hair seems to show him a family resemblance, perhaps a glimpse of his father's face in his own, and it also marks the long stretch of time he has spent working.

The last lines are the most puzzling. Calling the gray "the last lost ice" suggests something cold, pale, and disappearing, like the final bit of winter melting away. "All my accounts" may mean the things he has done and owes, a kind of reckoning of his life. The poem doesn't say how he feels about this outright, but the tone is calm and plain. There is some sadness in the idea of loss, yet the mood is mostly settled and honest, as if he is simply taking stock.

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