181 Aging poems

No one in neuroscience thinks time is not important. Criticisms arise with how time management is achieved. - Dr. Patricia Churchland, philosopher/brain scientist 1. When handling the past in the present tense, chronology is of the utmost importance. Suppose I say I’m eight years old and all the rooms of my father’s house are larger than life. Then I say Two days after my first divorce, the only landscape I know is simplified, bone-smooth. The past remains practically undisturbed. But suppose I reverse the order in which the episodes are recreated, and time goes on a rampage, and I find myself coming and going. Journeys on land have a spherical tendency because this is always at some level the nature of the ter- rain. The anthill crumbles in the rain and the ants returning with more provisions walk past the leveled mound; having noticed noth- ing, they keep looking for home. Though each mouth carries its crumb of substance, tradition and evolution will see to it that it isn’t eaten until the journey has been completed. It’s not unusual for the ants to walk repeatedly over the ruins. A squirrel chases itself so fast around the trunk of a palm tree that it appears to be standing still, like propeller blades in midflight. (I used to know the cause of this illusion.) I say Someone’s at the door, somebody please get the door although I haven’t lived there in years.Somebody please get the door. I want nothing more than my share of the past. 2. True. There are degrees of isolation. Sixteen days after a shopping center collapses like a punctured lung in Seoul, South Korea, a nine- teen-year-old girl is found alive in an elevator shaft. Her only nour- ishment throughout the ordeal is an apple that a monk gives her in a dream. The doctors are skeptical and attribute her survival, instead, to “her false perception of time.” The brain—with its network of rivers and tributaries, the flow rigorously controlled—is taxed by a sudden drought. Or an apple passes from one hand to another. In both versions, extraordinary measures achieve a modicum of nor- malcy, shaken again when a boy—age thirteen, his circadian rhythms still fighting the syncopation of jet lag—walks out the window on the thirtieth floor of a Swedish building. They’re calling it “a sleep- walking accident,” as if sleep were a cognitive state. If that were the case, our sheep and our prayers would keep us up all night, count- ing and repenting, and there would be degrees of salvation. I can tell you that none of this is true, but much of it is, and you will not for- give me when you discover that I’ve led you to believe otherwise. The truth, in one form or another, has ways of finding you. Blame it on your false perception of the facts. Time the sniper has lapses in which its eyes tire and its focus falters and it aims at itself. So the window opens; the girl shakes the rubble from her dress; a monk, gathering apples in his robe, almost catches the falling boy. 3. They say that when the Who performed at Leeds University on Valentine’s Day 1970, Pete Townshend played against his own echo during some of those riveting excursions he launched into through- out the band’s quarter-hour-long offering of "My Generation." I lis- ten to it differently now. I wait for the echo they tell me is there, preceding each note, and it’s as if I were experiencing the music a pri- ori. I listen to the chords or whole riffs bouncing off the walls versus sound in real time. Doing so, I miss the actual song, which is also delayed because this is, after all, a recording. Once, the concept of real time was redundant. Before the first gramophone. Before we learned to manipulate the speed of things to come. And long before that, the idea of a spirit that takes over for the temporary body was already popular. Perhaps our first attempt to deny the unavoidable. One new religion offers immortality. For a price. Unlike traditional religions in which death is a prerequisite, this one teaches the body to bypass the soul, that middle man who always gets in the way, and the here-and-now becomes a here-and-always. It’s all up here, one of its members says to me, pointing his index finger at his temple, as if mimicking a gun. I may actually want to die before I get old, I think, the radio as loud as it’ll go, one chord after another bouncing off the walls so many years ago at Leeds, the road much longer than I’d expected, the signal grow- ing weaker and one station giving way to another. From feedback to static to a preacher who invites me or commands me or dares me to lay my hands on the radio. Both hands, he says. I raise my legs, raise my whole body (although it’s not levitation or anything nearly as glam- orous) to steady the steering wheel. 4. In The Book of Ironies they forgot to write that a superstitious woman will end up marrying an atheist. Curiously, in all the cases I know, it’s the man who doesn’t believe. The woman is always open at the very least to the possibility of that “something out there.” At times her superstitions are proof of God’s constant tinkering with the cogs and wheels of the soul. There are atheists with proof of a finite world, atheists in need of a finite world, reformed atheists whose image of God has become so pure over the years that it has gone from inevitable to unnecessary to simply impossible. One believer argues that only the next life makes this one tolerable and lends it purpose, that only the idea of being part of something cir- cular can keep us from going mad, because true madness is linear and the points at either end are clearly defined. This is an uncom- fortable thought for her. I wonder if her belief is, more than any- thing, a way to keep at bay this linear derangement. The atheist lying beside her is beginning to sink into sleep when she speaks: she has carefully chosen this moment, thinking he’s vulnerable enough to say what she wants to hear. He sits on the edge of the bed and won- ders for a moment what it would be like to take that leap forward; or backward, which is something she doesn’t mention: believers of her kind tend to discount any previous incarnations, as if eternity began here. Being here, he says to himself as he has said to her so many times,is the point. Then he tries to think his way back to sleep: wedding band, crown, zero, smoke ring, lasso, hula hoop.

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall, The vapours weep their burthen to the ground, Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath, And after many a summer dies the swan. Me only cruel immortality Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms, Here at the quiet limit of the world, A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a dream The ever-silent spaces of the East, Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn. Alas! for this gray shadow, once a man— So glorious in his beauty and thy choice, Who madest him thy chosen, that he seem'd To his great heart none other than a God! I ask'd thee, 'Give me immortality.' Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile, Like wealthy men, who care not how they give. But thy strong Hours indignant work'd their wills, And beat me down and marr'd and wasted me, And tho' they could not end me, left me maim'd To dwell in presence of immortal youth, Immortal age beside immortal youth, And all I was, in ashes. Can thy love, Thy beauty, make amends, tho' even now, Close over us, the silver star, thy guide, Shines in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears To hear me? Let me go: take back thy gift: Why should a man desire in any way To vary from the kindly race of men Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance Where all should pause, as is most meet for all? A soft air fans the cloud apart; there comes A glimpse of that dark world where I was born. Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure, And bosom beating with a heart renew'd. Thy cheek begins to redden thro' the gloom, Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine, Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild team Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise, And shake the darkness from their loosen'd manes, And beat the twilight into flakes of fire. Lo! ever thus thou growest beautiful In silence, then before thine answer given Departest, and thy tears are on my cheek. Why wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears, And make me tremble lest a saying learnt, In days far-off, on that dark earth, be true? 'The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts.' Ay me! ay me! with what another heart In days far-off, and with what other eyes I used to watch—if I be he that watch'd— The lucid outline forming round thee; saw The dim curls kindle into sunny rings; Changed with thy mystic change, and felt my blood Glow with the glow that slowly crimson'd all Thy presence and thy portals, while I lay, Mouth, forehead, eyelids, growing dewy-warm With kisses balmier than half-opening buds Of April, and could hear the lips that kiss'd Whispering I knew not what of wild and sweet, Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing, While Ilion like a mist rose into towers. Yet hold me not for ever in thine East: How can my nature longer mix with thine? Coldly thy rosy shadows bathe me, cold Are all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled feet Upon thy glimmering thresholds, when the steam Floats up from those dim fields about the homes Of happy men that have the power to die, And grassy barrows of the happier dead. Release me, and restore me to the ground; Thou seëst all things, thou wilt see my grave: Thou wilt renew thy beauty morn by morn; I earth in earth forget these empty courts, And thee returning on thy silver wheels.

Since you are, dear madam, so favoured by time, That he seems to have granted a lease of his prime, With the power to renew it whenever you please; Unencumbered by taxes of age and disease; Prolonging that date, which in others appears, The frail fleeting tenure of very few years: Why could you not ask him some favour to send, Enclosed with a present designed for a friend? One tint for her cheeks of youth’s vivid hue, To suit with those beautiful ribands of blue; One spark for her eyes of a juvenile twinkle, One smile of her mouth undeformed by a wrinkle; One ringlet or two — on her forehead to play, Unmixed with the sorrowful colour of grey? Yet too modest, perhaps, these requests you forbore, Yourself so indebted would not ask for more. And perchance had you teased him, thus Time might reply; ‘That to you I am partial — I will not deny; Nor need I declare — what who sees you must know: That on few I such singular graces bestow. But if from my rules I recede for your sake, And still give to you what from others I take, I cannot for all so go out of my way, And reverse those decrees which all mortals obey. My law is that youth shall soon wither and fade, And like morning’s bright beam shall be followed by shade. Most severe is the sentence I pass on the face, Full soon on its features my finger you trace. Yet I no such dread rigour extend to the mind, In age that still charms if it be but resigned. If calmly beholding fair youth’s setting sun, It with fortitude reckons my sands as they run; Not with peevishness fraught as each wrinkle appears, And resisting my progress with petulant tears. No — your sex must learn patient good humour of you, And meet my approaches with smiles as you do: With temper unruffled by envy or spleen, Like the sun of the autumn — thus mild and serene, Learn of you to converse with politeness and ease; Then in spite of my spoils — they will know how to please.

The chickens are back in their coop. The kids are out on the town. It's here in one fell swoop. It's sundown. You've heard them say it before. The rumour's been going around. You're heading straight for the door. It's sundown. You've forgotten what you said. All that matters is here and now No one's getting you to bed, even though it's sundown. The trucks roll by on the highway. You want to follow that sound. You want to have your say at sundown. The dusk turns into dark. You walk away with a frown. You're the only one in the park past sundown. Here's where the children played, but they're not here right now. You don't want to end your day, even though it's sundown.

Kathleen Eileen Already I am no longer looked at with lechery or love. My daughters and sons have put me away with marbles and dolls, Are gone from the house. My husband and lovers are pleasant or somewhat polite And night is night. It is a real chill out, The genuine thing. I am not deceived, I do not think it is still summer Because sun stays and birds continue to sing. It is summer-gone that I see, it is summer-gone. The sweet flowers indrying and dying down, The grasses forgetting their blaze and consenting to brown. It is a real chill out. The fall crisp comes. I am aware there is winter to heed. There is no warm house That is fitted with my need. I am cold in this cold house this house Whose washed echoes are tremulous down lost halls. I am a woman, and dusty, standing among new affairs. I am a woman who hurries through her prayers. Tin intimations of a quiet core to be my Desert and my dear relief Come: there shall be such islanding from grief, And small communion with the master shore. Twang they. And I incline this ear to tin, Consult a dual dilemma. Whether to dry In humming pallor or to leap and die. Somebody muffed it? Somebody wanted to joke.

By the last few times we saw her it was clear That things were different. When you tried to help her Get out of the car or get from the car to the door Or across the apartment house hall to the elevator There was a new sense of heaviness Or of inertia in the body. It wasn’t That she was less willing to be helped to walk But that the walking itself had become less willing. Maybe the stupid demogorgon blind Recalcitrance of body, resentful of the laws Of mind and spirit, was getting its own back now, Or maybe a new and subtle, alien, Intelligence of body was obedient now To other laws: “Weight is the measure of The force with which a body is drawn downward To the center of the earth”; “Inertia is The tendency of a body to resist Proceeding to its fate in any way Other than that determined for itself.” That evening, at the Bromells’ apartment, after She had been carried up through the rational structure By articulate stages, floor after flashing floor, And after we helped her get across the hall, And get across the room to a chair, somehow We got her seated in a chair that was placed A little too far away from the nearest table, At the edge of the abyss, and there she sat, Exposed, her body the object of our attention— The heaviness of it, the helpless graceless leg, The thick stocking, the leg brace, the medical shoe. At work between herself and us there was A new principle of social awkwardness And skillfulness required of each of us. Our tones of voice in this easy conversation Were instruments of marvelous finesse, Measuring and maintaining with exactitude “The fact or condition of the difference There was between us, both in space and time.” Her smiling made her look as if she had Just then tasted something delicious, the charm Her courtesy attributed to her friends. This decent elegant fellow human being Was seated in virtue, character, disability, Behind her the order of the ranged bookshelves, The windows monitored by Venetian blinds— “These can be raised or lowered; numerous slats, Horizontally arranged, and parallel, Which can be tilted so as to admit Precisely the desired light or air.” We were all her friends, Maggie, and Bill, and Anne, And I, and the nice Boston Brahmin elderly man Named Duncan, utterly friendly and benign. And of course it wasn’t whether or not the world Was benign but whether it looked at her too much. She wasn’t “painfully shy” but just the same I wouldn’t be surprised if there had been Painfulness in her shyness earlier on, Say at dancing school. Like others, though, she had Survived her childhood somehow. Nor do I mean She was unhappy. Maybe more or less so Before her marriage. One had the sense of trips Arranged, committees, concerts, baffled courage Living it through, giving it order and style. And one had the sense of the late marriage as of Two bafflements inventing the sense they made Together. The marriage seemed, to the outside world, And probably was, radiant and triumphant, And I think that one could almost certainly say That during the last, heroic, phase of things, After his death, and after the stroke, she had By force of character and careful management, Maintained a certain degree of happiness. The books there on the bookshelves told their stories, Line after line, all of them evenly spaced, And spaces between the words. You could fall through the spaces. In one of the books Dr. Johnson told the story: “In the scale of being, wherever it begins, Or ends, there are chasms infinitely deep; Infinite vacuities...For surely, Nothing can so disturb the passions, or Perplex the intellects of man so much, As the disruption of this union with Visible nature, separation from all That has delighted or engaged him, a change Not only of the place but of the manner Of his being, an entrance into a state Not simply which he knows not, but perhaps A state he has not faculties to know.” The dinner was delicious, fresh greens, and reds, And yellows, produce of the season due, And fish from the nearby sea; and there were also Ashes to be eaten, and dirt to drink.

By the last few times we saw her it was clear That things were different. When you tried to help her Get out of the car or get from the car to the door Or across the apartment house hall to the elevator There was a new sense of heaviness Or of inertia in the body. It wasn’t That she was less willing to be helped to walk But that the walking itself had become less willing. Maybe the stupid demogorgon blind Recalcitrance of body, resentful of the laws Of mind and spirit, was getting its own back now, Or maybe a new and subtle, alien, Intelligence of body was obedient now To other laws: “Weight is the measure of The force with which a body is drawn downward To the center of the earth”; “Inertia is The tendency of a body to resist Proceeding to its fate in any way Other than that determined for itself.” That evening, at the Bromells’ apartment, after She had been carried up through the rational structure By articulate stages, floor after flashing floor, And after we helped her get across the hall, And get across the room to a chair, somehow We got her seated in a chair that was placed A little too far away from the nearest table, At the edge of the abyss, and there she sat, Exposed, her body the object of our attention— The heaviness of it, the helpless graceless leg, The thick stocking, the leg brace, the medical shoe. At work between herself and us there was A new principle of social awkwardness And skillfulness required of each of us. Our tones of voice in this easy conversation Were instruments of marvelous finesse, Measuring and maintaining with exactitude “The fact or condition of the difference There was between us, both in space and time.” Her smiling made her look as if she had Just then tasted something delicious, the charm Her courtesy attributed to her friends. This decent elegant fellow human being Was seated in virtue, character, disability, Behind her the order of the ranged bookshelves, The windows monitored by Venetian blinds— “These can be raised or lowered; numerous slats, Horizontally arranged, and parallel, Which can be tilted so as to admit Precisely the desired light or air.” We were all her friends, Maggie, and Bill, and Anne, And I, and the nice Boston Brahmin elderly man Named Duncan, utterly friendly and benign. And of course it wasn’t whether or not the world Was benign but whether it looked at her too much. She wasn’t “painfully shy” but just the same I wouldn’t be surprised if there had been Painfulness in her shyness earlier on, Say at dancing school. Like others, though, she had Survived her childhood somehow. Nor do I mean She was unhappy. Maybe more or less so Before her marriage. One had the sense of trips Arranged, committees, concerts, baffled courage Living it through, giving it order and style. And one had the sense of the late marriage as of Two bafflements inventing the sense they made Together. The marriage seemed, to the outside world, And probably was, radiant and triumphant, And I think that one could almost certainly say That during the last, heroic, phase of things, After his death, and after the stroke, she had By force of character and careful management, Maintained a certain degree of happiness. The books there on the bookshelves told their stories, Line after line, all of them evenly spaced, And spaces between the words. You could fall through the spaces. In one of the books Dr. Johnson told the story: “In the scale of being, wherever it begins, Or ends, there are chasms infinitely deep; Infinite vacuities ... For surely, Nothing can so disturb the passions, or Perplex the intellects of man so much, As the disruption of this union with Visible nature, separation from all That has delighted or engaged him, a change Not only of the place but of the manner Of his being, an entrance into a state Not simply which he knows not, but perhaps A state he has not faculties to know.” The dinner was delicious, fresh greens, and reds, And yellows, produce of the season due, And fish from the nearby sea; and there were also Ashes to be eaten, and dirt to drink.

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field, Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now, Will be a tattered weed, of small worth held. Then being asked where all thy beauty lies— Where all the treasure of thy lusty days— To say within thine own deep-sunken eyes Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise. How much more praise deserved thy beauty’s use If thou couldst answer "This fair child of mine Shall sum my count and make my old excuse", Proving his beauty by succession thine. This were to be new made when thou art old, And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.

That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see'st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire, Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by. This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Down, unequal weight on his haunches and the rain driving his shirt sideways, his legs are as rigid as the stone and timber that props him up. Ears, half-opened lips slurred to bits; a head no longer able to troubleshoot the broken glass inside him. • Wiry treetops are blacker. The after-rain light diffused to near neon-gray. There was a boy seen by neighbors running the width of the field. One said he disappeared — as if he fell headlong into the horizon. Another said it wasn’t a boy, but a hart. Next to nothing left where Evans was found, but there was a sound box, some thing in which his soul made itself felt.