Aging

Rosmarie Waldrop - 1935-

^{Aging. Being in pain. Finishing. Rotting.

—Emmanuel Fournier}

We feel we’ve contracted into very dim, very old white dwarf stars, not yet black holes. Wrinkled, but not quite withered. Dropped out of summer like a stone, we watch time fall. With the leaves. Into a deeper color. Wavelengths missing in the reflected light.

The road toward rotting has been so long. We forget where we are going. Like a child, I look amazed at a thistle. Or drink cheap wine and hug my knees. To shorten the shadow? To ward off letting go?

So much body now, to be cared for. What with the arrow, lost cartilage, skeleton within. Memory no longer holds up. A bridge to theory and dreams. Impervious to vertigo. Days are long and too spacious.

Though the sun is a mere eight light-minutes away elderly dust hangs. Over the long sentences I wrote in the last century. Now thoughts in purpose tremor, in lament, in search of. Not being too soon? Going to be? Unconformities separating strata of decay?

You say aimlessness has its virtues. Just as not fully understanding may be required for harmony. And blow your nose. You sing fast falls the eventide, damp on the skin, with bitter wind. And here it is again, the craving for happiness that night induces. Or the day of marriage.

The difference of our bodies makes for different velocities. But gravity is always attracting, and my higher speed. Cannot outrun the inner fright we seem made of. Though I gesticulate broadly. As in a silent movie. Running after the train, waving goodbye.

Distant galaxies are moving away from us. Friends, lovers, family. Even the sky shifts toward red. Where every clearness is only. A more welcoming slope of the night. And I don't remember why I opened the door.

Mouth full of moans, you believe the natural state. Is a body at rest. And close your eyes to the threat of your face disappearing. Without thought or emotion. Into its condition. And I thought I knew you.

Are the complications thinning to a final simplicity? The nearest thing to a straight path in curved space? Clouds of gas slowly collapsing? With only one possible outcome? But unlike a black hole I keep my hair on. As I move toward the unquestionable dark.

This dark, Mrs. Ramsay thinks, is perhaps the core of every self. The deep note of existence the ear finds, but cannot hold on to. Across the vicissities of the symphony. Or else this dark could be our shelter in the time of long dominion. And though we are not well suited to the perspectives it opens it is an awesome thing to see. Once you can see it.

Evening Sun

							for Sophie Hawkes

                                                     1

On a balcony onto the Seekonk stands. And full of thoughts of winter. My friend. And drunk with red wine I. Think of the power. Of a single word. Like for example "fact." When I know what matters. Is between.

But how with gnarled hands hold the many and how? The sun and shadow of Rhode Island? Let alone the earth?

Down swoops the hawk. From the sky over Providence. The sky over my head. Down to the leaves inward curled on the ground. But not like buds. Yellow. A cat is buried here and the leaves. Swirl up in the wind.

In the hour of the hawk. What is meant by: I think? Or even: I sit under clouds in which. Rain gathers weight. I sit in my mother's shawl which is. Threadbare. In my head I sit. By the river Euphrates. Strange like water the skies of the dead.

And high from the branches of the maple. Like a prelude to snow. White feathers.

But music. Quickens the house down into its shadows. So trembles air in the sun and the shape of the tree blurs as if through a flame seen. Swarms of monarch butterflies stir and brush your cheeks. In celebration. In memory.

Almost visible the words of the song. Leave the singer’s mouth and rise up into the sun. Which goes crazy instead of down.

Floods, storms, fires. But a tank won’t be stopped by a word. Not even if you shout it from the middle of the road, with hands thrown forward and fingers spread out.

Nor by music. Though its power is great. Like the heat of noon it slants between body and soul. Difficult, then. Unaccustomed as we are to beauty. To know which is effect and which cause.

Not merely as a sailor is present in a ship am I. In my body. Intermingled.

My father thought he had the gift to read the stars. To know if the light in a person’s eyes. Had gone out. To hypnotize. I stayed awake. Weak in the knees am I. Not a spiritual woman. And pulled toward the earth.

He said, you have to look from afar: what children we are, so gravely at play. In worn out light, in afterglow. Yet fire present is in words.

Which is why we try to read. The stone, the wood and grass, the cloud and lightning and air. And the ancients and poets. And the frogs croak in the swamps.

And to stand. Sky around your shoulders high on a mountain. Or balcony. And know you must cast. Like so many shadows. Your words onto the distance. Or paper. But will they span?

And the next morning you go to the bakery and ask for a loaf of rye. This too is work and without it the dream crumbles inside its glass case. And we must travel the ocean just to see it.

With great force our bodies are pulled out of our mothers. And ever since, we walk like almost orphans. With a scar on the brain.

And remember childhood among strings and puppets. Crutches. Knees under the chin tucked. And toy warriors with lance and shield and red badge to ensure courage.

Which we need to live in three dimensions. Of dry air. Or wet. Among gauges for measurement made of wire and string. That my father had looked at before.

And tapped with his finger to make sure. They were steady, not broken. And hitched his pants against gravity and tried to discern. The tether between particle and wave.

Tea has dribbled on his book. The letters under the drops enlarge till a wavy gray absorbs the excess. If however too deep you plunge, he thinks. Into thought. You can’t rest till you get to the bottom.

Let us take our time, Sophie, fitting bones to the earth. Though they are turning visible inside the flesh, and our blood. No longer overflows and spills.

Much work still to be done. And the smell of ripe peaches. And Long-Jing tea. And lungs full of words. And being an opaque body that intercepts the rays of the sun.

Rosmarie Waldrop

2003

NATURAL Though not real like thought or possibility. The pattern of my reading, beginning with there was, moves into the present. Like lifting a hand unsure whether to imitate duration or mimic passage. As long as form is never less than activity it’s not how the cookie crumbles, but simply that it falls apart. Happenstance. A hat. A window. Whirling leaves. Why not trust the rest will follow? In the dream I could not see you because you thought you were hanging from a trapeze. TONE DEEP No sound is less than a sound or more. But music keeps us from hearing each one by itself. Says John Cage. It is a pity. No mother tongue unless a mother. Or many books demanding we enter their superb monotony. What tongue would not allow us to say you in the deep sense, intimate? Years of melancholy, errors in pronounciation. Something in the middle slows down. So many times a day I do not speak any language. ANY SINGLE THING Is so complicated we can only give it a little shove with the knee. The cry of the gulls. The line between water and grammar. Horizon and interpretation. Between two blues. Field of error. My gestures not my own. Desire not a color. And the sound of the sea. Listen. PRECONCEPTIONS WITHOUT DELAY Because light finds a place to fall. If intermittent. I can live in a small word and lose my head for another. Despite the slowness of my work. I’ve not explained, at best described in more elaborate terms. Opaque. Opaque, the space of hesitation, ricochet of recto verso. But the kiss. Is admirable, simple syntax, easy tale. Mouth undone at the lips. THE PROBLEM WITH PRONOUNS All the bodies, one by one, the measure. Says Robert Creeley. Composite, containing simples, as surely as words are pleasure. The door, the white door, all the doors. To the small range of wavelengths called the visible world. We’ve attached names. So I could speak to you. Now something in the middle has come apart. The word “I” sits on my shoulders. Ready for carnage.

Poems

Aging

More by Rosmarie Waldrop

Not a Description

Evening Sun

from In Pieces

Related Poems

from “ShallCross”

poets.org

academy of american poets

national poetry month

american poets

Poems

Aging

Newsletter Sign Up

Support Us

Follow Us