The Romance of Middle Age
Through this summer, conversation abounds about where we were this time last year, and how far we have come; All the things no one told us, all the things we expected, all the things we knew. Suddenly we find ourselves inspecting the sagas we raced through, the scars on our arms and legs and minds, and the stories we never realized were shaping us with every day that passed.
By we I refer to my cohort, the early twenties, who are only at the very beginning of the long, gorgeous, and arduous process of battling with the philosophical leaps and bursts of emotional catharsis that come with age. Though still essentially a child, I have developed a fascination with the effects of growing histories on our relationships with ourselves and each other, and find the beauty of time’s distortions elegantly expressed in the Mary Meriam sonnet below. Enjoy.
The Romance of Middle Age
Now that I’m fifty, let me take my showers
at night, no light, eyes closed. And let me swim
in cover-ups. My skin’s tattooed with hours
and days and decades, head to foot, and slim
is just a faded photograph. It’s strange
how people look away who once would look.
I didn’t know I’d undergo this change
and be the unseen cover of a book
whose plot, though swift, just keeps on getting thicker.
One reaches for the pleasures of the mind
and heart to counteract the loss of quicker
knowledge. One feels old urgencies unwind,
although I still pluck chin hairs with a tweezer,
in case I might attract another geezer.
Tags: age, Mary Meriam, poetry
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July 28, 2010 at 1:54 am
Thanks for your eloquent words – your post sounds like a prose poem.