My Old Age
It’s the end of the rainbow
My heaven if you will, (I won’t)
Why work hard all your life?
Why do more than you need to do?
I can’t think of a greater reward for a life well lived
Than to grow old with someone by your side -
Certainly not seventy-two virgins – a temptation that is all too shallow, temporary, physical
Nor the semitransparent heavens of Valhalla, Eden, or Avalon – amorphous amalgamations of superlatives – the best, unending, most beautiful
To pass conspiratorial winks to visitors
To walk outside each morning and feed the birds like my grandfather
To complain and complain and enjoy and enjoy
To have billions of reasons for that smile to keep crossing your face
To be that old couple, slow dancing –
So close together - their bodies, their movement –
That they seem like one
I want to know happiness in comparison to sorrow
I want to always earn love given freely
I want to fight and struggle and work to make my life what it is
I want surprises and uncertainty and worry
I want to be one half of that old couple that have made it – not through the tunnel of life, but up and down and up to the best vista in a mountain range - wrinkled, shriveled, tired –
Together
don't @ me
9 years ago
Do you think love is ever given completely freely, Ben? I'm not sure that I do......I also don't think that fits into your mechanistic universe concept very well......?
ReplyDeleteMm, I don't believe that love is given freely. I think the statement would be better as "I want to always earn the lightly given 'I love you's of family and friends." Then again, it is a poem about growing old with another person. Perhaps that is the wrong direction. The idea is that I want to be worthy of love on a continual basis, continuing to woo and not simply letting momentum carry things forward. I want the dynamism of life alongside the depth of both feeling and knowledge of a long relationship.
ReplyDelete