Mest læste ▸
Thirty-Five
New sap, rising
in the solitary
peach, ran from
an open wound.
Digte om emnet: aging
Digte om emnet “aging” på Poets.by.
Lucius Atherton
When my moustache curled,
And my hair was black,
And I wore tight trousers
And a diamond stud,
I was an excellent knave of hearts and took many a trick.
But when the gray hairs began to appear—
Lo! a new generation of girls
Laughed at me, not fearing me,
And I had no more exciting adventures
Wherein I was all but shot for a heartless devil,
But only drabby affairs, warmed-over affairs
Of other days and other men.
And time went on until I lived at
Mayer’s restaurant,
Partaking of short-orders, a gray, untidy,
Toothless, discarded, rural Don Juan. . . .
Growing Up Absurd
once
it did not take blandness
to provoke action
once joy was sufficient
once
the smile of a passing stranger
was reward enough
at one time
you would even laugh
without apparent reason
all that is gone
the costume must be chosen with care
the makeup must be correct for the role
once you tried freedom
no longer
for you
Upon Slowly Waking, She
rouses from a dream of fear. Suppressing
a moan, spine filled with fluids overnight,
yes, again, and ankles still in pain. Across
the flanks of her beloved she now crawls,
stumbles round the room to find the handle
of her life, or only the door, sliding her feet along.
A floor creaks with dry rot as she steps among
the objects that reshape her: bloomers, slips,
half-slips, girdles, bras, tights, stockings.
She feels, Braille-fingered, for the small room where
all who seek may find that men or women are
only men or women; here they see themselves
before any other's eyes, and by a harsh light.
Her eye looks deeply through her from the glass;
tells her that her sorrows are contemptible. So?
My Father
My father is 88.
Yesterday I got a letter from him.
He said he has not been feeling very well lately
for in these last six months
he has lost four of his friends
and three of his teeth.
A Tale for Children About Snow
When Year grows old
its hair grows gray and white.
Then Wind picks up its giant scissors
and begins to shear it off.
So, as I told you many times before,
the white wool which during the winter
covers everything is not snow -
it's the shorn white hair of the old year.
You There
Laugh lines and signs of failing liver
Wrinkles and knobby belly
They say one thing
‘The child has turned old
The child has turned into a crocked man
And he crumples up like a dry leaf
On the dance floor
Ask the janitor for a shovel
Scoop up that dry corpse from the dance floor
Do it quickly
Do it fast
Let the music last
And last
The Juniper
when we moved here it was
so tiny now it spreads and spreads
up to the window
covering streets houses,
blocking out light yet somehow
our rooms are bright
growing sideways artful hardy
protecting us from
others' eyes and driveways, cars
guarding our windows
once tiny like our
neighbours' children who
once visited grew into
teenagers too old to come
or like we and our neighbours
growing grey
Too Soon
These are not the tomatoes she wanted,
Heirlooms such as Cherokee Purple, or
Even Brandywines. But the clerk only
Sells what's brought in, finds labels, wands
Each three-inch pot through as she would
A bag of chips or box of three penny nails.
Really, the old woman muses, I should have
Ended my day at the seedsman, but it's not
Near here -- what, twenty miles? So I've
Opted for the discount store again, to buy
These things that hurt my soul: hybrids.
There's this about them, they do produce
Heavy fruits that please her folks and friends
Easily enough, and in larger numbers. But
To her there's something in them lacking.
Old varieties taste of the eyes of young
As Rain
The cool-weather plants have bolted, and she
Has had to gather the saddest cases.
Even kale, not last year's but this year's, and
Chard are defying the routine she has,
Over decades, established as garden law.
Often she walks through now, knife in hand,
Lopping flowering stalks, vainly trying
Whether some leaves can be kept soft
Even as the heat chases her dream of spring
Away again. Like last year. Like the year before.
There's something to be said for radishes,
Her bowl tells her, which is that it is not
Empty. With arugula and rocket, leaves
Ripped from already woody stems, snipped,
Piled loosely, steamed lightly, stirred
Lazily with duck egg on hot iron
What to Do About Trees
What to do about trees, for she had room:
Have an orchard. But isn't that thinking
About twenty years ahead? So she went
To the tool room for her spade in November;
Took that and four apple saplings down
Onto the flat by the road, and began. Years she
Did this, working up and around the rise
Of better ground. Pears, cherries, quince
Abounded, but the plums got blight, and had to
Be started over. She was too old to harvest
Or even get shade from nut trees, they're so slow;
Uncoupling crop from objective, she anyway set
Them out, along with the rest. Last, she
Thought of mulberries. The hens could have
Really used those. Oh, well. She ordered,
Even this late in life, and planted once more,
There Are Rooms
There are rooms in a life that may sometimes
Have someone in them; but they are guests there.
Even when one most loves, one may find,
Really, a solitude that begins at this wall,
Ends at that wall; the rest is not entirely ours.
As years turn and suns, moons and stars
Rise up and fall like rain by every window
Even one's hands will shrivel soon enough
Right at the ends of one's arms, as hands
Of strangers. But to fret at this discovery
Of emptiness arrived at and emptiness
Made clear by moon's dance with water,
Sun's dance with dust, by endings never sought
In even that one room that is one's own, is
Not worthy of even that we call our life.
All our guests deserve from us restraint.