I’d like to but I can’t claim that I’m wise.
I know what I don’t know, and modesty
increases with my age, to my surprise.
But I’ve spent years composing poetry,
and metric art is born when I revise –
I hear the peal and feel the honesty.
It takes a second reading, or a third,
to bring integrity to every word.
(Ottava Rima)
I’m healthy but I need to take more care
with how I eat and drink and move around.
I’m better now, inhaling only air,
but three score thirteen years have brought profound
adjustments. Overall, my body’s sound,
but healing slows and appetites as well.
A breeze can almost bruise, but I’m not downed –
I think I’ve time before they toll my bell.
(Huitain)
I thought it was a kindness, every day
to call a friend who’s ailing and alone.
I often had to search for things to say –
my plate’s still full and so to fill the phone
with items I’d share details – chat away
the minutes with minutia. Then she’d groan
it’s TMI or boring, flung or spat.
I think it’s time to take a break from that.
(Ottava Rima)
I boiled water for a nasal rinse
and fogged my kitchen windows thoroughly.
The garden view is looking wintry since,
but spring in fact approaches bloomingly,
so pollen irritates me, probably,
producing mucus and persistent drain
that coats my throat and chokes phlegmatically,
distilling a desire for some rain.
(Huitain)
Determined as I was to stay inside,
I lasted seven hours. Then the sun
invited me to walk – not far or wide
and nothing even hinting at a run.
Suggestion of the coming vernal tide
beguiled me to witness everyone
on sidewalks in my budding neighborhood.
And sure enough, the amble did me good.
(Ottava Rima)
When someone 5 years old assumes the role
of parent to herself, her selfishness
becomes the theme for every choice she’ll make.
If reading fiction grows to be her goal,
she’ll opt for English major – nothing less
will blaze the path through college she will take.
She’ll birth some kids and love them heart and soul,
for else she thinks she’d age to grouchiness
(the witchy crone who makes the urchins quake).
She’ll get a job outside her home control
(agoraphobia she’ll swap for stress),
and gather lessons there, and set her stake.
Averse to driving, she’ll allow that hole
in function to impel her busyness
to walk and ride and drive herself awake.
Called selfish by my loving enemy,
it’s true – I angled for what’s right for me.
My dad and brother did photography;
my daughter took it up before 15.
A crowded field, there wasn’t space for me –
I stuck with rhyme and meter for my screen.
I sketched and painted too. I honed my sight,
and though I liked their photographs, I thought
the camera lens restrictive, that I might
view better than what film and darkrooms wrought.
Along came smartphones, lending to us all
an easy way to snap a shot not poor.
I started taking pictures, and I learned
how different is the seeing when it’s small.
Confessing I was wrong and over-sure,
I’ve gained perspective where their art’s concerned.
Accused of overvaluing intelligence,
I took offense defensive and appalled.
The added over didn’t scan. It made no sense.
Would she prefer the child’s engine stalled?
It took some pondering to comprehend –
we’ve talked so long and frequently, we each
resent the other’s certainty. My friend
asserts a lot, and I attempt to teach.
We love but sometimes find each other boring.
That’s when the best response is calm ignoring.
All senses of detox most people know
involve the matters eaten, drunk or shot
(perhaps inhaled). But somehow I forgot
what interrupts a beneficial flow
of vital energy becomes a foe
to health that can impede, constrict, or blot
all senses.
I think I stalled upon an old plateau
until I altered how I move a lot.
I started to explore where I’ve been not.
Three days of strange were what it took to grow
all senses.
(Rondine)
The problem with retirement communities
is they resemble ghettos for the old.
The residents exhibit scant diversities,
and even if the food’s okay, what’s told
at table are minutia of infirmities,
adventures shrunk to where the wheelchair rolled,
the ambulance of no return, the eulogies,
prescription lists by which each day’s controlled.
And those abiding independently
in houses or apartments that permit,
are likely of the Boomer company,
engaging in what’s age-appropriate.
Stenosis of the spirit is the skids –
so spend some afternoons around the kids.
 | sputterpub on About Mom, With Love |
 | groomie on About Mom, With Love |
| sputterpub on No Blocks |
 | Caleb Cheruiyot on No Blocks |
| sputterpub on For Now |
Sputterpub's Blog 