Been writing a bunch, happy to say, and these two popped up one day after the other. Hope you enjoy.
The Taste
Suddenly, and for no reason I can imagine,
I smell the sweet sweet flavour of wild cherry
cough drops I loved when I was a boy.
Does it mean I’m dying, to have
such an unusual dreamlike smell
take me over, traveling as it has
from so long ago to where I casually
walked by beside the pantry door?
Well, of course I’m dying. But,
to have it announced
by this taste of being young,
to be given the gift of knowing I just might
be able to lick my lips all the way to the grave!
That is nothing anyone can hope for,
and yet it has been given. Let us pray.
July 20, 2018
The Field
I have decided to come here,
perhaps it is a privilege of age,
to come here to walk around this field
every day at dawn for the rest of the time
I am alive. The breeze at that hour
is soft, or tends to be if there is any
breeze at all. It seems to lift out
of the light that has just lifted itself
up and out from beneath the covers
of the still dark bed, innocent of what
came before, or what is yet to arrive.
I need that renewal, having burned
hot or cold through the fuel I was given
into my eighth decade, and now
have been asked to please burn
for two decades more. I did not demur.
The transparency all things are
does not reveal the end
of even the smallest plan. So I will
wander as I have always loved to do,
and I will circle this field as a rising breeze
in the morning daylight, with my
black dog at my side, or just before.
July 21/22 2018
Thank you for these two heartwarming poems about the mysteries, the pleasures, freedom and inevitability of aging. It makes the heart feel good and reading it drives away the fears of the impending senior years. My prayers and good wishes on your 8th decade on this planet. My gratitude for gifting us with your poetry, and your book, “Fingerpainting on the Moon.” I am reading it for the second time…each read is life changing, transformative. May we all be blessed with your continued presence for two more decades.
Thank you for your extraordinarily kind comment. I feel so happy hearing what you’ve said, and am grateful to think that something I wrote found meaning with you. Many blessings and thanks to you.
still aging!
peter
Love this: “to be given the gift of knowing I just might
be able to lick my lips all the way to the grave!”