Aging

Every day I grow a little more "old."

I become what "old" should be.

I fall into the dictate.

This is a choice

Perhaps even a concession

Perhaps a conviction.

The choice, concession, conviction

is freeing

It hides me away.

Me who had youthful lusts

Me who had ambitions

Me, I, who had hoped for love and fame.

I can escape now into old age

and succumb to contentment.

I was one who, as Hopkins states,

was marked when young

marked by death

marked for pain

And even in my youth I was never young.

That is what bothers me

I am to become old, having never been young.

I am to slump toward death, having never lived.

I was lovely once

But only for an instant.

I grew fat.

Loving eyes poured upon me once

But the wrong soul peered out at me.

I have felt joy some three or four times.

Mine has been an embattled life

And I fought valiantly, though badly.

Since youth

death and holiness were poured upon me

Against death, I fought.

For holiness, I fought.

When young.

But now...old age has come.

Poem: Looking at my novel "The Constant Tower" which few have read

With conviction, hope, and endurance, i crafted this

I spun it from my heart

yes, and from illness too

And all my hope was intricately woven within it.

That is the way it is with most art

whether book or painting, music or dance.

For time, times, time and a half, we pour out our souls.

And, finished, we set it adrift

(without money or power, we can do little else)

We imagine a favorable wind 

or some kind wave

or a groundswell will toss our making into the world's heart

 

Now, finished -- finished seven years now and writing newer stories--

I am tired and sick at heart at the praises my famous friends receive.

My teeth and jaws ache when I see 

their lists and posts of acclamation.

I am not as kindly or as saintly as I should be

The happiness of the famous and acknowledged

is too great a burden for my unwhole and petty heart to bear.

My dear sweet perfect little book

you who contain so much of my heart,

although my fame and wholeness rested on you.

I did love you for yourself

 --for you are a thing of Beauty, and all who have seen you have praised you--

I grieve for you continually.