Archive
03/31/11
Life's Trinity
Some say that old age is a graceful state of mind, A precious blessing, a transfiguration of flesh into essence, A kind pain not to be wished away, with frivolous complaining, A fortune-stroke over which we have no control, anyway. Others rue the late days, the senior years, Convinced they're dogged by ennui, malaise, dementia — Cursed inventions of the worst mad demon's bad dreams, Wreaked on human beings, those weak, feeble creatures Who can't succeed at anything other than frail failure.
Then, of course, there are millions of flown souls Who never get to know the delicious social pleasures That go with growing slowly, peacefully, happily Beneath the soft, slow glow of winter's most golden sunset, For their youthful indiscretions, turpitude, insouciance, Reckless ecstasies lasting as evanescently as fireflies' flashes, Before they crash through destiny's barrier Marking the precipice looming over oblivion's vast abyss, Cross fate's wide divide, into forgetting's bottomless depths.
Having now almost reached my never-say-die eighth decade, On my ferociously driven, poetic ego's self-reflective odyssey, I wonder if I've just been lucky, in exercising my audacity With such impunity, so few formidable roadblocks, Or if it's all been a serendipitous gift from the gods, Which, any slip of the banana-peel second, ice-slick minute, Might prove to be my last breath's final step... Or if, in reality, it's the baby steps of my aged spirit Tottering toward redemptive resurrection, into heaven.
03/31/11
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