Sputterpub's Blog

Two score and seven years ago, a tray
of Norse design as wedding gift we got.
We didn’t choose to entertain that way;
we used the dish to clean and hold our pot.

The giver was my brother’s college friend.
When we divorced we didn’t disagree
about its placement on the list we penned –
that tray spent all its future time with me.

Continuous in service, it’s remained
a feature of my leisure and my rest.
Ingrained with vintage resin now, grass-stained,
I take the tray for granted. I’m impressed
with useful beauty bearing time’s attack,
but yesterday I felt the tray’s first crack.

Of late I’ve started sampling old CDs
(I own a working player and a crate
of purchased music decades old). Some please
enough to keep and some are second-rate
about to go, but all induce in me
nostalgic habits corny as a joke:
there’s suddenly an urgent tendency
to stand and dance or find something to smoke.

And that’s okay, I say, but it’s a fact
that though I’m fit and not approaching death,
I’ll pay unless I move without impact,
and I’ll admit I’m often short of breath
(because of age because when young I chose
to overdo bad habits, I suppose).