THE ELDERS
already are starting to retire. First
the color of their hair, then their hair,
their once-smooth gait now upgraded
to gimp. Then their quick quip, the witty
banter, with friends whose names,
like the titles of books, are cities
now surrendered. Their hawkeyed sight
is losing its feathers, perched in the fog
of an ordinary day—early evening, say—
forgetting suddenly where it was
they were heading, what they were
looking for—and sometimes even a foot
retires, sometimes a lower leg
right up to the right knee, which ached
every time they had to get out of bed,
and wasn’t much use anymore
anyway, really. Now the smooth clarity
of their voices is drying to a bag
of gravel, now their crystal hearing’s
cracked, stuffed with leaf fall—they’re
retiring, seceding, disappearing before
our very eyes, magician’s assistants in a box
we can’t get back
open, now we’re here
and now we’re snowbirds in a distant
land marooned and it will never—
not ever—turn spring again.
—from Rattle #85, Fall 2024
__________
Philip Metres: “This is a poem of a certain age about noticing that I’m occasionally (suddenly! inexplicably!) the elder poet at certain gatherings. Writers and teachers I thought would work and live forever suddenly become citizens of the land of retirement, or light out for the lands farther than that. We would be lucky, one day, to join them. Time is undefeated. Dust to dust, earth to earth, life’s lust, death’s dearth.” (web)
