Tag Archives: poems about aging

The Harvest

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Click on any photo to enlarge all.


The Harvest

Most of my lifetime, I’ve gone for the “zing,”
Excitement and novelty were my main thing.
I wrung out of life all the juice I could wring–—
all the diversions existence could bring,
constantly reaching out for the gold ring.

Life without change seemed pointless and dull.
I wanted my life without any lull,
so I greedily sucked all the fruit from its hull,
finding on my own what I needed to cull—
which things I should keep and which to annul.

As I fell to the ground after soaring the skies,
I sorted successes from my mere tries.
I learned from my tendencies to aggrandize,
gave up on false dreams to follow the wise,
and sometimes I managed to capture the prize.

Only now as my life has finally unwound
have I gained some perspective and finally found
that all those wild oats I have sown may be ground
to release all the lessons so carefully bound.
What is seeded in ounces may yield by the pound.

 

The three prompts today are “zing, pointless and wise.” . Here are their links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/07/23/rdp-53-zing/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/07/24/pointless-july-24-2018/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/07/24/fowc-with-fandango-wise/

Shut In

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Shut In

No longer is there any need
to leave my house for drink or feed.
Costco delivers, as does the son
of one I used to join in fun
to dance in bars and flirt with men,
but now those times are what has been.

Now I prefer my company
to what I used to do and see.
I hope to circumvent all trouble
By living here within my bubble.
I lay out solitaire alone
and socialize by screen and phone.

I’m done with yoga. Zumba is out.
I do not flounce myself about.
Here with myself, I pass my life
sealed off from politics and strife.
Though the world’s pleasures I don’t forget,
I choose to turn my back on it.

Safe in my bubble, I peer out
and I’m content, without a doubt.
Behind these shutters and barred doors,
I’m safe from robbers, rapists, wars.
I let in nature, and that’s enough.
It’s human nature that is too rough.

 

The prompt today is bubble.

At the Crossroads

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IMG_0310At the Crossroads

I am drawn
toward a horizon
not as flat as the others.
Palm trees stir
in the ocean’s breath.
A yellow dog
churns down this road,
but I do not follow.

That other road?
Spires of a city
pulse with light
and an imagined music
blows in on the wings of notes
that swim through heat currents in the air.
Not that road, at least not yet,
the music tells me.

What the third road leads to is invisible
behind a denser curtain of air
blistering with possibility.
Like fingers motioning me forward,
flapping like drapes in the sky––
beckoning.
Come here. Here. Here.

Spinning to look behind me,
then in a circle to see where I am,
“Is this place enough?” I wonder.
It is a place known and comfortable.
It has the right chair and a fridge well stocked with food––
familiar objects of my choosing.
Can “here” be a course chosen?
Can we draw new roads through where we are?
Everything is present everywhere, I once said,
and a trusted friend agreed;
but truths of the past are not always complete truths.

We add on to truth like sand castles,
building new towers,
crumbling others in our haste
to make bigger, better.
Truth changes like the sea.
In its entirety, it is the truth;
in each part, part of the truth.
It is a creative endeavor,
this life of each of us––
choosing the parts of truth
to call our own.

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Did you recognize this post from over two years ago? An interesting part of reblogging is finding the errors. I wonder if other people notice them and are just polite or if they were as invisible to them as they were to you. I’m still dealing with the question posed in this poem. Perhaps I always will be. One thing is for sure. I grow more invisible daily. The prompt today is invisible.

The Holy Apewoman of Mexico

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This post made years ago at the very beginning of my blog answers today’s prompt of “conjure” perfectly, so here it is again after a small edit:

The Holy Apewoman of Mexico

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 My dialogue takes place between my 7 year old self and my 70 year old self who, ironically, is writing this in Mexico.


Childhood Dreams

7
The mysteries
of Grandma’s barn
and basement—
whole lost worlds there.
Our own attic—a door held down
by a gravity never challenged.

I wanted to see
the hanging gardens of Babylon,
Mexico and Africa—
all these places from books,
their pieces jumbled together
like puzzle pieces
in the deep recesses of my closet,
scattered,
but ready for assembly
some day
when I would
make my future memories
happen.

70
I crouch with myself at seven—
sharing imagined dangers
in deep closets,
trying to conjure the world.
So many small town stories
overlooked
while I dreamed of living
in those fairy tale places
of Bible stories
that stood on a shelf
sandwiched between
the Bobbsey Twins
and Tarzan.

Some of us spend our lives
trying to be like books,
then spend our old age
trying to remember childhood,
mainly remembering
childhood’s dreams.

*

The prompt word today is conjure.

Leap Year

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Leap Year

This year, indivisible by four,
is nonetheless a leap year.
As friends fall away from my life
like leaves losing hold,
I make adjustments,
searching for a direction
other than down,
spread my wings,
letting that stubborn wind
that blows me
determine my direction.

 

A quadrille for dVerse Poets. The prompt is “leap.”

Approaching Seventy

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Approaching Seventy

Careful near the pool edge, careful down the stair.
“Hurry” is disaster’s brand new nom de guerre.
All the things that in the past you might easily dare
are potential dangers hanging in the air;
so don’t stand on a ladder, or even worse, a chair.
It’s different being single than when you were a pair,
for there is no one  with you to see how you might fare.
When coming from the pool, be sure the shoes you wear
do not slip upon the tile–this is your worst nightmare.
If your feet are wet and if they’re also bare,
when you plug in your curling rod, I hope that you take care.
Although I know you’ve always been nimble as a hare,
things all change with age. I say this ’cause I care.
Bones become more breakable and muscles tend to tear,
so please take proper care, dear, in your single lair.
At seventy those second chances tend to be more rare.

Today’s prompt word was “Careful.”

Spending Time

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Spending Time

What do you value most, my friend? What carries you through life?
Have you friends and children? A husband or a wife?
If what we find of value in all the world contains
all we carry with us when youth and vigor wanes,
would you choose a portrait of all that you have had
that points your view toward happier times as the world turns sad,
or would you choose a camera that points you at the world––
all these younger lives than yours, about to come unfurled?
Whatever gives us life at first, then takes it all away
really only gives us what we have today
to value and make use of. So I want to be bolder,
looking straight ahead of me and not over my shoulder.
Though every hour has value, and every second in it,
the only time we have to spend is the coming minute.

The prompt word today is “value.”