aging

May 21, 2023

CALLING

As I age, I more willingly accede
to the sirens call of sleep
for as night washes over me
pulling up its blanket of stars
she takes me on a voyage
to destinations she will
not disclose until our arrival.
The journey may be pleasant
or the seas of night can be
roiling, but her grip is firm.
But in her never certain world
age can slough off, fall away
until my body and its increasing
frailties and limitations slip away
and my youth is no longer
a memory, but on this night
or that, it is my new if transient reality.
But I dare not cling to it, for
the sun will intercede again
and drag me back to the body
I so willingly escape each night.

May 15, 2023

MASTER MA IS UNWELL

Yesterday is but a shadow
and tomorrow an illusion.
Do not wallow in the mud
of attempted memory, do
not sink in the mire
of deluded anticipation.
Stop, listen to the sun
and the moon sing
of the Dharma, hear
the silence it brings
for you are alive
in this moment,
and there is
no other moment
in which you can live.

A reflection on Case 3 of the Blue Cliff Record (Hekiganroku 碧巌録)

May 3, 2023

PEKING

Chi-Chi was a cute peke
in a very “runt of the litter”
sort of way, cuddly but
hardly the show dog
her breeders had intended.
I asked why she was called
Chi-Chi and my father searched
and showed me her AKC
papers, with the full name
that would’ve made those
of Spanish royalty
pause to consider the brevity
of their seemingly endless names.
She was a simple joy, followed me
around like a furry ankle bracelet.
She loved most everyone, she
was loved in return, save
for the always angry neighbor
and for him she transmuted
into a true lion dog of China
guarding the gates of the palace.

May 2, 2023

MOLDY

Say what you will about
this modern age, beset with,
well, it’s probably far easier
to list what it is not beset with,
but there are things from my youth
that I do not miss at all.
Like the copper molds that home
on the kitchen wall, one the shape
of a lobster, another an ornate ring.
They were strange but reasonably
decorative items, but when
they were taken down to serve
their intended purpose they
were the source of my chagrin
as mother carefully mixed the Jell-O
and poured it into the mold
never getting the proportions quite right,
leaving us to smile wantonly over
gummy cherry lobster bits
or lemon gel with some sort
of tasteless whipped topping.

April 28, 2023

ROCK ON SLOWLY

In yet another sign of age
I realize I simply cannot
enjoy much of today’s music.
I know it has merit, I know
most love it, sales and downloads
don’t lie, but it doesn’t work for me.
I want the music of the 80s, the 70s,
or even the late 60s, but with,
dare I say it, a bit of a twist.
I want the older music to come
from a different room of the house
the older the farther from my ears,
as though distance and time
were intimately related, and
when one song piques my interest
I can walk back into
my youth to hear it more clearly
as I did when it first touched my ears.

April 25, 2023

STILL

Someone once told me that pain
is a good way of knowing
that you are still alive.
I did want to kill that person,
but thought better of it,
why not simply smile and
leave him in a life of pain.
More recently I was told
that I would get used to
my chronic pain and
over time it would seem
to hurt less if I just live with it,
accept that it is always there.
So now I have an always
angry roommate who speaks
only in single words, who
explains nothing when questioned
but appears when I least
want to see him, jabbing
and stabbing until I
want to scream “I’m alive,
so go to hell, you’re needed there.”

April 22, 2023

HOW OLD?

People say that dogs can live
to well over 100 dog years,
but each of our years
is seven of theirs, so
our self-delusion feels complete.
We want old age for our dogs
to feel they have lived a full life,
something we also want for ourselves
and so we project on our pets.
The odd thing is that as we age
we wonder if our pets will
outlive us, and the older
we get, the more it begins to feel
that time is attempting
to behaves like dog time
the years seeming to pass
ever more quickly.

April 9, 2023

ANCESTRY

It shouldn’t be so easy to forget
where your ancestors came from, why
they left their homes, traveled to
a new place where they might not be welcomed
but took the chance for a better future or just
to avoid the horrors of where they were.
It is a part of your DNA, yours were
the” other” then, but yours came and made
a new life, as your grandparents
told you repeatedly until you covered
your ears, the story an earworm
you only wanted to avoid again.
Now you sit in your pleasant home, with
food on your table, and decry those
who appear at the border as your
ancestors once did, seeking escape
from terror or poverty, so it seems
your forgetting is complete,
your ancestors are consigned to history.

April 8, 2023

OCULUS

I avoid telling people that I
am going blind in my right eye
for they always seem surprised
as if it should look different
or worse, they say “but it might
not happen,” when I know
the only way that is true
his if I die sooner, not something
I want and if I told them that
would be something for which they
would fumble furiously to apologize.
And, they would add, “but at least
you have your left eye,” which is true
but it’s also a crapshoot, since
it’s 50-50 the left will join
the right within seven or so years.
So I generally stay silent and just
complain about my back, which
is something that they can relate to.

April 7, 2023

MARKING TIME

Life Is of limited duration but we
never know what that duration is
until the moment it ends, and then
we have no reason to care.
But as we age and that period
necessarily shrinks, some pause
and wonder what’s left, wonder
what they might have done differently,
where they would be today if they had.
But they don’t stop to consider that
every moment spent in the past
is a moment taken from the present
and stolen from what the future offered.
You want to keep your memories, but
the price of storage is great, so there
is a tenuous balance to maintain.
Still your past is a shadow that
follows you, and the question is
whether you want to spend ever
more precious time looking
over your shoulders rather
than engaging the world around you.