TO BE OLD

For those of you frantically scanning the news for reports of my death, you can relax. I'm still here. This small recess in my 'poem a day' project was caused by a trip to my 94 year-old German grandparents whom I'll call KAISER and QUEEN MOTHER.

The trip itself was bittersweet. We ate a lot. We talked a lot. I'd like to say we laughed a lot, but that wouldn't be true. Although QUEEN MOTHER has resigned herself to the fact that she might not be around forever, and spends her days happily searching junk mail for reusable stamps, KAISER clings to life with such grim determination that I actually wonder if immortality might be a choice.

That being said, it's not a fun battle to watch. KAISER survived the Holocaust and if that horrific event didn't kill him, no microscopic disease or failing organ has a chance... But he's also stopped having fun. It's like watching a man cross the finish-line of a marathon, only to announce that he wants to run another 26 miles even though his legs have cramped, his feet have blistered and his bowels released on mile nine.

This poem was inspired by KAISER and QUEEN MOTHER.

It comes from somebody I'll call BARRY. BARRY is also living out his last years, but he's resigned to his own passing. Some people fight to the end, while others simply close their eyes. I wonder which way I'll go?

TO BE OLD

To be old,
and life’s no more
than the rattling of autumnal leaves
in a half-empty garbage bag.
And every night you go to sleep,
not knowing if you’ll awake.
and every day you say your goodbyes,
to the sky, to the sun, to the family of swans
swimming in the pond.
and every pot, every jar, every receptacle
takes on a new meaning.

--Noah Evslin