Written before I was old. Now I am, so I can read it again and see if I was right. Rhetoric be damned! How did I know? I was half my age. It comes for all of us. The words don’t matter, they don’t stop time. I suppose I should take consolation in the way I was able to project thought, to lay out an agenda I can follow to verify. And of course, as I’m discovering, there’s more to it, and I’m still learning to control my responses so I can still say, all caveats aside, “Life is wonderful.”

Unless, of course, it isn’t. But that’s something we can all work on. The poem appeared in Golden Gate Review, a magazine of poetry, Volume One, No. 1, 1982. Theme: Focus on aging and the family.

I TOO WILL BE OLD

I too will be old
and watch the slow sun
move the air across the trees
My eyes will thicken
the light
I will watch the past come
alive in the shadows
I will see many faces
in the faces I see
I will look at my hands
in wonder