Old And Wise

[poliphilo]

OLD AND WISE                              

                                   

To turn into an ancestor

While still alive, to become a shrine

Of wormy wood and joss-stick ash:

It could happen any time now. Your grip

Loosens and the pitons go

And you slither down into the blue-green gulf

Where all your dreams become posthumous.

Comments

[oakmouse]

Amazing. Thank you.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Life belongs to the young- and when you get past a certain age you really don't count any more. When I wrote this poem (a few years back) I was afraid of this. Now I find it rather liberating.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Oooh. Yes.

I was with my son and daughter-in-law for two weeks, and with Kate also (she lives nearby right now in Richard's old house), and felt sometimes silly and too-young, trying so hard to be young for them, not be a frail old grandmother, glad my hair's still brown, hoping they didn't get bored with an old woman in the house, sitting on the playroom floor (stiffly) for hours while Isaac and Nathaniel made Lego rocket ships and armies.

Mostly I succeeded in not letting go, and never told them about my arthritis in my left leg or how stiff I was after sitting on the floor...I can't stand people fussing over me or seeing me with "loosened grip"=

[oakmouse]

It's liberating in my experience also. Age causes people to drop their expectations of you --- not in the sense of expecting less of an older person (although that's often true as well) but rather in the sense of no longer bothering to try to make an older person fit into the prescribed socially acceptable categories. Turning 40 was one of the most freeing experiences of my life. Overnight the BS I'd gotten for years about my failure to behave like a conventional person evaporated. I'm not sure why; I didn't go around wearing a sign that read "Officially Middle-aged Now"; but I welcomed the change.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There's a family wedding coming up at the end of the week. Ailz has been helping to make the cake and I've got a commission to take lots and lots of photos. I'm very much aware that our perceived role in the scheme of things is to be the elderly, eccentric aunt and uncle.

And why not?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There's a point at which non-conformist behaviour that threatens the status quo switches over into harmless eccentricity.

At 56 I guess I've been in the later category for a good while now.