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.
Subscribing, I have recently annexed
a catalog of resources to use
to slow decrepitude. Without pretext
I’m exercising ligaments and thews
before another effort, till I’m flexed
by gentle pose and stretch. I don’t abuse
the corpus like I did so many years.
This resolution’s working, it appears.
(Ottava Rima)
I’ve heard there’s nothing like the human voice –
no instrument can equal our full range.
But power comes with room to make a choice
about your tone of speech. Let’s not estrange
the sound of conversation from rejoice
and warm to cold belligerence. Exchange
that tune of bitter, discontent, or rue
for courtesy, and I’ll attempt it, too.
(Ottava Rima)
Compression is the symptom as I age –
a tendency in body and in mind.
There’s condensation in the way I gauge
surroundings, and the spacing in my spine.
I’m shrinking daily, sleeping shorter, kind
of like a turtle in my skin and neck.
Combating this, I stretch and fresh-opine.
I won’t surrender meekly to the wreck.
(Huitain)
Returning after 20 years away
from where she started life and spent much time,
the differences she notices dismay,
but most the views are charming – urban grime
and old graffiti, weather off the bay,
drug deals half-mistakable as crime,
lights and bikes and ambience so loud,
she grinning shakes her head. She’s feeling proud.
(Ottava Rima)
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