Category: aging

Responsibility vs Love

Like Atlas, I bear
the world’s weight
call it responsibility –
a painful delusion
requiring walls

Life has its own rhythm –
light and dark,
joyous and sorrowful –
orchestration outside
of my domain

Love, however,
is limitless
in its capacity –
open-hearted acceptance
protection in itself.

Trading one focus
for another
permits appreciation –
I vow to assert love
and forgo control.

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Let It Go

It’s not intentional
this accumulation
amounting to clutter

It”s inevitable, given
the emphasis on chasing
material happiness

Its impotency is ironic
all superfluous now
that health teeters

Weighs heavily
on my mental state
craving simplicity

The sentiment
we treasure beats
in heart’s memory

Objects age,
lose relevance
generationally

I let go of fear,
the guilt, find
blessed relief

New space inspires
openness, excitement
ensues – freedom.

(Image my own)

The Last Train (Sonnet)

We wait at the station, Mother and I,
one final stop for her – painless she prays;
I busied at bedside – prolonged goodbye –
memories and regrets filling our days.

“We live too long,” she wearily proclaims
“Why must suffering linger till the end?”
I plea and bargain, call angelic names,
yet the will to survive refuses to bend.

The urgency builds as my time dwindles;
must I leave her in this compromised state?
She rallies and stands on wobbly spindles
dismisses fears – has accepted her fate.

Some destinations are clearly defined –
Death is a train whose schedule’s unkind.

(The Last Train first appeared January 2019. Image my own)

Some Days

Why am I courting judgment
like an old friend,
popping in unexpectedly?

She overlooks my needs,
barges in reeking
of stale perfume, and
energy-sucking shoulds

I crave the subtle tones of compassion –
quiet whispers over tea –
a gentle pat, words of encouragement

But, truth be told,
I squirm at even this –
hate vulnerability,
hate this weakness on display,
this chronic, fucking disability

Seems I have dressed myself
in judgment’s cloaks,
walk in the pinched shoes
of expectations too tight

No wonder I’m exhausted,
am dying…numbed
to my own drama.

(Image my own)

Of Light

There is light in unknowns –
at least I project it there –
caught between the current
ashen landscape and the achings
of a solitary childhood…

I like to think faith guides me
but she is muted like the gardens
of my dreams, more ethereal
than palpable and I need concrete
have waited too long for that train

of certainty to carry me away…
course it never comes, there is no easy
just a slow, steady plodding: a pace
that age has settled on; so I turn
to inner landscapes, imagination
remembering colour…and yes, light.

(Image my own creation)