Elderly
I’ve reached the proverbial three score
and ten. My wishes, loosed cottonwood
seeds, differ from those of youth.
There are so many of ways to age.
To feed, to love, to need—all tenses
of to-be. These unfortunate verbs
pad like wall-to-wall this house I will
die inside or leave for a Home.
Have no self-pity, tall firs seem to say
beyond old eighty’s windows.
Heavy boughs wave in recognition.
The wet land they surround is reason
enough to stay put, unlike others
chain-sawed, cut into body-sized lengths
by workers from Asplundh. I feel as fragile
as glass packed into a box labeled
Handle with Care, thanks to lumbar fusions’
growth rings in my spine. What is grace?
Allowance for imperfection?
I like to survey the plain present, the future
and past less grandiose with gravitas.