at 20, I danced with men who smelled of Polo cologne
thinking only of me
at 30 when I nursed my baby, I
had no thought to ever wash my hair again
at 40, I drove the kids’ car pool all day
without complaining
at 50, I sat up past midnight waiting for teenagers to come home,
fearing the worst
at 60, I sat up past midnight waiting for my husband to come home,
thinking of divorce
at 70. I sit alone
waiting for these memories to die
I do not look at me
In the mirror much these days.
This bald pate,
This fleshy, swarthy face
Except to brush teeth
And the vexing necessity to shave.
I do not see me in the mirror
Just the yellowing teeth
And the graying stubble.
I do not need a mirror anymore
Having seen me for
Half a century and more.
I know me well enough.
But the occasional glimpse -
When my eyes meet my eyes-
Tired, watery, dead -
Happening to glance at my left forearm the other day,
Dark brown skinned and hairy
I notice that more hair have turned white.
Someday, if I live long enough,
My left forearm would turn all white
The darkness of my brown skin,
but not of my mind, hidden, hopefully.
Looking at the tuft, the bushy growth of hair
On my chest ( ah, not on my head!), again white ( why grey?)
I wistfully remember how, dark, how black it once were.
I hardly need a mirror these days, having not much
On the head to comb and pat them down.
I cling on (and at times nips at)
The vestige of my manhood, my moustache
Bristling, drooping bicycle handlebars,
The beard I dare not grow
At the busy junction near my house
I espy the bitch – that mutt
Who used to be the clandestine lover
Of my Tommy, gone, two years hence.
She was never a pretty dog, black and mangy
Her swollen teats sweeping the street
Her rough coat coated with dirt –
Yet - she was my Tommy’s lover.
The dog has turned quite old –
She limps and is skinny
Her face has turned grey
And fur fallen off in patches.
I wonder if anybody would miss her
When she dies, sick, starved or a roadkill.
It is midday; I wipe my bald head
I limp; my knees hurt lately
Today, aged forty-eight and few months,
I gained the right to drive a car.
A bit odd, it was, to stand amidst youth,
Grey haired, bald and a paunch to boot.
Like a baby taking its first steps,
I drove an H, snug, between iron rods.
Forward in first, backward in reverse,
Turn a right and then a left, do it twice for an H.
In the clutch, I sense the release
In the throttle, the urge to move.
Braking when enough, shifting,
Gears to change my pace.
Aged middle, I drove on the left
Steering myself steadily.
Off the middle, slightly to left
I drove as I have, all my life.
Time is fleeting in its passing
And does jolt the memory
Recalling images of long ago
When life seemed to stretch far away
Safe from Death’s stalking shadow.
As a child I thought as a child
Seeing only bright summer days
With friendships I thought to last forever
And parents who could never die
Old age a distant foreign land.
Now walking the land of the elderly
Old bones and old man troubles
Wondering how long before Death
No longer stalks but claims me
And time is no longer fleeting and stops.
I will be an old man sometime
And live in a dive somewhere.
I will think of this night some place
the rain falling on stone.
There will be no one near
no whisper on the street,
only this song of old longing
the plaintive yearning to be young
and you together on some street.
Now is the time of dark retreat
from drugs, desire, dance.
This is the last chance.
This is not the last chance.
I shall be young again.
Why, only yesterday I lay drugged
on the dark bed through two days,
what's gray and comes in quarts
is an elephant or my brain;
what loves or walks slowly in
the land is an elephant gray
and old, they have waited a long
time for her to give birth.
what i am saying is the age,
we live in, we grow old in,
grayness is not a state of mind.
you have red-blonde hair, another
is black, and there are jews with
orangey hair from the east of europe.
come to whatever you come to slowly.
haste makes elephants gray before
their time, routs the bears from
the caves before their time, turns
I wish I could crawl
into myself
and roll away
I await
the true touching
of the Messianic Age
when
love and knowledge
replace
obscene curiosity
Getting older
Keep thinking
I havn't begun
Jesus
half a life
and
I never saw you
Young and trembling
In Arkansas stooped
Over sharecropperlike
Making buttermilk for
Your fierce husband
But I loved you deeply
In the squalor of
Northern California
When you were old
And full of Jesus. . .
my hands still curve like breasts-
36 years! nothing changes!
When I was young my teachers were the old.
I gave up fire for form till I was cold.
I suffered like a metal being cast.
I went to school to age to learn the past.
Now I am old my teachers are the young.
What can’t be moulded must be cracked and sprung.
I strain at lessons fit to start a suture.
I go to school to youth to learn the future.