Anniversary Poem--37 Great Years

Finding Beauty in Every Season of the Year

No one on television ever told me how bleak life could be at sixty.

I would not have listened, because I preferred

sounds of summer breezes

when they tossed

curtains softly and made them

billow specter-like amid murky dreams

and because I preferred the sounds

of spring breezes when they

carried songs

laden with musk--trills and chirps

of songbirds, scents

of flowers and trees.

and because I preferred the sounds

of fall breezes

when crispness fell from trees

dancing amid blue skies to light

upon piles of yellow and red and gold

tones that speak of the stains of life and age

and because I preferred the sounds

of winter breezes too, although

my youth's eyes cast aside the metaphor.

Death walks beside us all. Stealth does not prevent
anyone from seeing its crippled gait

amid frigid wastelands. Life is silent here.

It breathes with a death rattle.

Old people hear it whisper to them: "I'm gonna git you dude."

Youth ignores the warning, because

they don't listen to messages for old people, who smell like soap

who smell like stale air

who move in slow paces at the mall
or drive Winnebagos on crowded highways.

No one ever told me life could be bleak.

But now I am old. I smell like old people. I shut my eyes and tilt my face

heavenward. Thoughts of spring

still remain clear
in spite of life spinning earthward: the ultimate

ebb and flow. Times like this make me hope for summer

and every time I hold

the velvet softness of my sweetheart and sense

her caress of hand

her touch of lips. It all

brings me peace. Laughter in her eyes

carries me to a place

without care

without sadness: a spot where I think

of devotion, of love, of meaning. I wrap myself tightly in thoughts

like these. I savor loving moments. I revel

and slosh about those memories

like a child

discovering images of clouds in a shallow pond.

Past and present pass so quickly, like
chevrons of honkers flying toward better places. Hope is like

a sunrise surrounded by red and orange light.

The colorful hues etch and brush stains

on clouds. I never see them the same way twice.

No one on television ever told me how a woman could love like they do.

But youth never recognizes omens that fill skies. They never see

a sparkle in chocolate brown eyes

teasing and nurturing and loving. They never see how love

grows

in spite of age, in spite of pain, in spite of sickness.

Clouds speak of winter storms ahead. I ignore
icy wind that drives

snow and ice. Reality shouts at me--howling at a slice of moon

amid starlight. I hear
the whisper: "Life is bleak, life is hard, life is cruel."

My shout against the wind is for my ears only. I defy age

that haunts me daily. I will not wallow in fear
or waste time with tears.

Life wanes and fades.

I celebrate every step in the dance

Life as a merry andrew. But even a fool has wisdom.
Let age paint my face

accordingly. Hope transforms me.

I am a ship upon the rolling waves of a violent sea. My soulmate is at my side

with each pitch and roll. I bask in her devotion, that silences gales.

It grasp a rose without thorns.

There is pleasure in age, when you join hands with someone you love.