Dealing with It
The “it” being old age,
which nobody likes to talk about.
But better than the alternative,
as my mother used to say.
Those of a practical bent
sort out papers, make a will,
discard the detritus of the past,
embracing the littler substance
of the future, which no longer
drips like a leaky faucet but
power-hoses into death’s
hidden garden, the gardener
with scythe in hand, waiting.
Others exist in denial,
chasing golf balls as the swing
becomes a slow-motion creaking
of shoulder and spine, the ball
disappearing in the blurred vision
of a grassy knoll that church folks
talk about after the Sunday service.
The suicidal, from pain or melancholy,
decide that offing themselves
would be better than waiting
for god to do something
with their desperate bodies.
The philosophical, who cultivate their gardens,
know that weeding and watering
mean nothing in the great scheme of things,
yet the scent of roses saturates
the quickening air, as long as they
can breathe it.
Grabbing spade and watering hose,
the dubious pleasure of soil and sweat
awaiting, I cast my lot with Voltaire.
The Present
To live in the present
is the dubious gift of age.
The past presents itself
as nostalgia, the thin grey veil
of memory, behind which
happiness hides in the form
of old photos, the stuff
of paper—imagine, paper!
Not joy, but the sadness of youth
hidden among the hostas, dull
but perennial and tolerant of shade.
The future will soon play out
in death, by the laws of probability.
The face in the mirror gives permission
to relinquish the daily weeding and watering,
to see itself as the last dahlia
in life’s wilted garden of nodding flowers.
Caught between past and future,
the last best choice is to live in the now,
discard the wrist watch with old-fashioned
numbers and a second hand counting
the seconds.
Carpe diem.
Into the Light
Sixty-four degrees Fahrenheit.
Brood XIII and IX, buried alive
for years, emerge. No coffin,
no winding sheet, just earth
as a dark shroud, under some oak.
Cicadas tunnel upwards
into light, eyes bulging orange,
wings papery, transparent as a cherub’s,
their love song a high-pitched croak.
They come out to mate, fluttering,
flailing, sailing, diving,
no radar to protect themselves
or us, glaring at humans
hostile to their magic,
spinning summer into gossamer,
exploring the newfound day,
and for one brief season,
they resurrect.
To Write
of giraffes when safaris
are no longer possible,
the grey-haired explorers,
pens in hand, tread the darkness
at dawn or in sleepless nights
when shadows of animals
lurk on bedroom walls
under a suburban moon. This
is what is left.
Give thanks for verbs
that crash through the jungle,
nouns that rustle in the underbrush,
prepositions that tie syllables
together with leaves of light.
Slippers on, leech socks and boots
discarded, I am vested in
the nightwear of danger, exploring
the deepening forest of old age,
a darkness that requires
the struck match of courage,
a thesaurus with no language
but a poem.
Donna Pucciani, a Chiccago-based writer, has published poetry worldwide in Shi Chao Poetry, Poetry Salzburt, ParisLitUp, Journal of Italian Translation, Li Poetry and other journals. Her seventh and latest book of poetry is EDGES.
No comments:
Post a Comment