A couple of new poems

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

 

3 thoughts on “A couple of new poems

  1. 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.

    • Peter Levitt says:

      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

  2. Jennifer Moss says:

    Love this: “to be given the gift of knowing I just might

    be able to lick my lips all the way to the grave!”

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