Figuring Out Life While Aging
The crone arrives like an undesired lover
leaving
the shape of your body
mutating.
Like an adolescent girl, you sense
changes
within:
unsought losses, unclear gifts.
You rage and sleep,
weep unwillingly,
demand more,
desire less.
There are no fairy tales here,
no promise of princes and beautiful gowns
only
the crone’s belly
and a different cloak of invisibility.
1997
In The Midst
There’s been an accident
at the intersection
near my parents
and they are overdue.
Their neighbour answers
the phone – a confused stranger
after her stroke –
and speaks of flashing red lights.
Their friend with cancer is hysterical
on the phone
with no one in the house
and no answers.
As I pick up my car
keys to search,
the phone rings:
It is my child’s school; there’s been an accident.
I woke in the night
and thought of you.
No bleeding,
just this annoying scab,
itchy, tender.
I keep telling myself
I’ve cauterized
your place in my heart.
You are reading
this,
far away
from the time and place
where/when synapses
fired
their ballet
and I thought
a feeling
a rhythm
holding these words –
first sliding in black
ink
on a page,
waiting
for synapses
and time
and fingers
taping
green life
through electric connections to a screen
that holds
and releases
thoughts, words
reconstituted
regained
and printing up,
through black tape,
in a rhythm
of line and page
these words
which bend
and fold –
and, enveloped, travel
to be studied,
held,
approved.
A bored stranger submits
these words,
through the finger ballet, to the machine that prints
these words
for you
to read
now.
You are who you are
because of
and despite
your mother.
You are who you are
because of
life’s surprises
and how you felt them.
You are who you are
because of
what you have grasped
and avoided.
You are who you are.
Air-conditioned coffee shop,
conversations bleeding into
silent tables,
voices speaking about conceptions
of God
or meditation
And addictions.
And relationships.
I want to interrupt
but don’t.
I wonder if I
arrived here
drawn
by those invisible connections
The Enlightenment
has denied me.
I have unprotected dreams
late at night
with strangers
searching through my metaphors
to find the weapons
I’ve buried
and attack.
In the morning, I run words in my head,
To see if they fit together,
To see if they flow.
Sometimes I reach for my keyboard.
In youth we come through our bodies as explorers
Seeking and measuring
Astounded and disappointed
As we grow into ourselves.
In our long midlife, we travel our path
Forgetting and wandering
Sometimes grateful, mostly blindly seeking
The more we yearn for.
Now, our bodies re-astound us
Aching and refusing
Complaining and attacking
Reminding us of time.
In youth we come through our bodies as explorers
Seeking and measuring
Astounded and disappointed
As we grow into ourselves.
In our long midlife, we travel our path
Forgetting and wandering
Sometimes grateful, mostly blindly seeking
The more we yearn for.
Now, our bodies re-astound us
Aching and refusing
Complaining and attacking
Reminding us of time.
Learning Living 