Okay, let’s get some things straight once and for all. I don’t live in a shoe. It’s a work of modern architecture, a quite normal if unusual looking home,, and if you imagine it shoe-like, so be it. I’m not old, I’m 45, but with eight kids I am prematurely gray. It wasn’t broth I fed them that night, it was a rich Pottage. And no there wasn’t any bread, six of them are celiac intolerant. And I’d hardly call a pat on the back reminding them of bedtime a serious whipping.
Of course we did not heed
the warnings, what did they know,
and anyway we were sure we had won.
History is a poor teacher, that
much we have demonstrated again
and yet again, lessons never learned.
It is how we got here, how we
have no clear path to leave here,
things assumed lying in ruin around us.
We are tired now, old and no longer
able to fight as we once did, so we
must become the teachers, sharing
what we know, what battle plans
we used, reaching for those who
assumed it would all be provided,
that they needed to do nothing,
to sit by, to not participate, and now
to complain about the disaster.
We did not want this for them,
they, although we didn’t know it then,
were the reason we fought, and now
they must carry the battle or lose the war.
The face in the mirror
was surprisingly older today,
and I can’t imagine that I
will ever look that old,
at least not for quite some time.
I wanted to ask him how
he had aged so badly, but knew
that it would be bad manners
to comment on his appearance,
so I smiled and he in returm.
I suppose one day I will look
much like he did this morning,
but I know that day is far off
in the future, and I just felt sad
for his older man’s face.
I have discovered
a small advantage
of slowly losing
my sight.
Each day
the image
in the mirror
is less clear,
wrinkles
disappear
and I don’t
look quite as old
as I know
that I am, and
you’re looking
better as well.
In the farthest reaches
of the afterlife, the old men
gather each day, although
day and night are meaningless
to them, just assigned
for purposes of the writer.
The Buddha recites sutras
hoping the others will
be in the moment with him,
while Hillel smiles, stands
on one foot and dreams
of a lean pastrami on rye
with a slice of half sour.
Christ muses on when
mankind might be ready
for his return visit,
and Hillel says “good luck
with that, it’s been downhill
with them for two millenia.
Shroedinger sits off
to the side staring intently
at the box, wondering
if there is a cat inside.
At the moment of your birth
my son, I grew suddenly older,
mortality became a reality
that I could no longer avoid.
You could not imagine this,
and I doubt others could see
but I knew and the infinite
collapsed inside the event horizon.
Your brother came later, but
that death was incremental,
a single cut among thousands,
a step on a path you chose for me.
You have your own children now,
your shochet impatiently
waiting in the shadows, and
they cannot imagine their
roles until the play rolls out
and they are thrust onto the stage
with no possible exits, and an audience
that knows how this play ends.
If you see the Buddha
you have certainly gone blind,
if you hear his words
you demonstrate your deafness.
Nansen will grow old,
hearing and vision will fade
and he will sit and shout
in a sun warmed rain.
A reflection on Case 34 of the Mumonkan (Gateless Gate) Koans
I realize now just
how old I have gotten,
no laughing any longer
at the old men always
tucking pills into a sorter
neatly marked by day and time,
for I now do my own
weekly, the number of pills
seeming to propogate by month.
I suppose it is time
to begin working in earnest
on the playlist for my funeral.
I’ll be damned if I
will have an organist
and somber melodies
although I may be
damned regardless, but
that is something beyond me.
It will be a long list,
but you can suffer for a bit,
and you know that I will conclude
with my favorite songs
in their full jam band version
by the Grateful Dead.
They say you cannot go home
again, although I have never
had occasion to meet them.
I’ve never been one to follow
the dictates of them, unless they
were my parents or spouse, and
in the case of my parents, often
not even when they demanded it,
so I went back to the home
of my childhood, a shockingly
new place as I remembered it,
setting the neighbors astir
as they saw it go up and out.
It, like I, am older now, but
seemed to have borne time
far more harshly than I.
I do sometimes have a gait
to accommodates arthritic knees,
move a bit slower than I
imagine, but the house seemed
to be looking for its cane
knowing it would soon enough
require a walker, and I knew
that while I could go home
I’d be happier if I didn’t.
You more easily remember
the birth of a grandchild
than his or her parent
whether from a memory
sharpened by age
or regular sleep
or by a vision
more acute for knowing
what to look for,
or simply a clinging
tightly to any symbol
of youth denied you.
It may be as well
that grandchildren see
you differently than parents
a hope for a long life
and the possibility of
one day being old
or someone whose mind
more closely resembles
in innocence and simplicity
or simply as adults
whose rules can be ignored
with no real consequence.
an old writer and his words 