retired? no
I’d rathered be leisured
which poet will I read
will I be
today?
aging
in America one speaks not of the attendant sorrows of aging lest one be thought old
what once was unimaginable
has this day come to pass –
sixty-five
the denial of aging is the denial of death
never too old –
college town shop girl
smites heart with smile
like autumn leaves I am dying,
much more slowly,
no less certainly
hopeless –
a romantic till the end –
a look, a smile, a lilting voice and dreams arise
I tell myself, “you’re too old,
too bald, too fat…”
no matter, dreams arise
annoyed with a limitation of age,
I curse . . . watch as anger drains away
old age is a time when earlier griefs and sorrows may turn out to have been good practice
pleasure of age –
driving through orchards
excited by blossoms
unplanned obsolescence — aging in youth crazed America
how remarkable, we celebrate only youth even as our own disappears
she,
not being here,
neither needs me nor feeds me
now that I’m 64
in many mirrors,
in many windows,
my reflection . . . growing older
when you no longer need to know the time, they give you a watch
Singapore: old and perhaps in the Way
America: old and definitely in the way
older,
life more simple and mysterious,
both,
simple and mysterious
autumn falls
yearly upon the world,
once upon us
point of no return:
the face in my mind
has wrinkles
who looks in the mirror remains 35,
who looks back adds another year to the count
thinning light,
thinner hair –
winter