For I am old now...
There is nothing to say. I was a lover but now no longer equal to that task, no longer on the quest for dragons, no longer willing to stand my ground and hold the dark at bay. What I do, I do in story and fable and poem, do with cleverness and delegation. I give way to the young bucks who know everything and then I watch how it turns out. It is ever thus, always this way. I fell short of independence. I do not have enough. I am in the position of the elderly who go out on the ice to save the tribe the burden. This is nothing to grieve, not in the best of worlds, just what is. Most days I am okay with it.
While this is still a story at this moment, it is really there in my near future. That is the point. This is not far away for me. It is easily right next door. If I pretend otherwise I begin to be pathetic in my denial. I watched a dear friend who tried desperately to deny his mortality while it trimmed his edges piece by piece. I vowed I would not let myself be in that position. I have carried death on my shoulder for decades, ever since Don Juan Matus (Casteneda) made that spiritual gesture so obviously right for me to do. Now I am reaping the benefit.
Erotic Certainty
You have given me
words, ruby flames rising
higher than I can
for I am old now
and you hold the true arrow
of the time to come.
Still we both know words
with erotic certainty
given as we love.
March 19, 2009 8:14 AM
Contraction
1 week ago
I love to say something naughty, i mean erotic. but..
ReplyDeleteWell i love the poem, it's beautiful. But don't tell me that you're old, and what else you say.
I think we can have it both ways, no matter what age and condition. But what do i know, i am still so very young, only 49.
xox
Love this one....you are such beauty Christopher..I frankly find getting older a bit of a pain
ReplyDelete:>)
LINDA
Jozien, I tell you nothing :) I tell myself what I need to hear in order to live with humility if I can. I know that's a hopeless case. But read again, perhaps. I did not say it is here but that it approaches.
ReplyDeleteLinda, as you say...I live with pain, just usually not so serious pain. Unfortunately this has been a mortality year, a small heart attack, then a condition in my hip that has come and gone but is as yet unexplained. I lost more work this last year than I have in all my work years except the year my mother, dad and former wife died and my girlfriend left me and I moved homes. I have been connected with doctors more this year than all the years since I was eighteen. It doesn't take Einstein to read these signs.
They tell me through the mri's and x-rays I have arthritis all over my joints and I know I do in some of them, like my thumbs.
I would complain but I have little pains compared to some.
Oh yes :D
ReplyDeleteI can hold the flame for you
for an instant in time
I can breathe your breath
fight your fight
live your death
I can hold this flame alight
as you held mine then
it wasn't always this way
xxx
Michelle! Yes, yes indeed. You are atuned to the way of this thing. You have offered a weave of words, a vista on the many worlds of love.
ReplyDeleteLove's Tapestry
You've caught the windy
song as it threads past us here.
You rise, hold my light,
my lowering light.
I feel the spacious welcome
in your heart, your eyes
as you rise above.
We shall lift our days toward
the gold flame beyond
the gray sun hanging
low in this odd aged land.
We are now entranced,
woven together
as true as ever we've been
life and life and love.
sigh.....:D
ReplyDelete"I give way to the young bucks who know everything". True enough, but you are sentry and scribe and should not be minimized. What is history without proof in documentation. Would be but breath...vapor.
ReplyDelete{{{M}}}
ReplyDeleteAnnie, you caught my snide remark. :)